Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [80]
TABLE 2–3
Mass-Media Coverage of Worthy and Unworthy Victims (2):
A Murdered Polish Priest versus Two Murdered Officials of the Guatemalan Mutual Support Group
NEW YORK TIMES
TIME and NEWSWEEK
CBS NEWS
Articles1
Column inches
Front-page articles
Editorials
Articles1
Column inches
No. of news programs1
No. of evening news
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
Victims
1. Jerzy Popieluszko, murdered on Oct. 19, 1984
78
(100)
1183.0
(100)
10
(100)
3
(100)
16
(100)
313.0
(100)
46
(100)
23
(100)
2. Héctor Orlando Gómez and María Rosario Godoy de Cuevas, murdered between Mar. 30 and Apr. 6, 1985 (along with a child, who was tortured)
5
(6.4)
80.0
(6.8)
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1 The media coverage is for an 18-month period from the time of the first report of the victim’s disappearance or murder.
This incident is revealing. It is unlikely that Sharansky or Walesa would be so treated by the INS, but if by some chance they were, the press outcry would be great.111 When a press conference was held in Chicago by supporters of GAM to protest this outrage, the major media did not attend, and neither the press releases nor the follow-up letter from a congressional group signed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan could break the silence. The convergence between Reagan administration policy toward Guatemala and media priorities was complete. (According to two organizers of the Chicago press conference, full information on this event was given Steve Greenhouse, the New York Times’s reporter in Chicago, but not a word about this incident appeared in the newspaper of record.)
A press release by the Guatemalan army on September 17, 1986, accused GAM of conducting
. . . a black campaign of falsehood . . . insults and insolence directed at the military institution that exceed [the boundaries] of liberty and tolerance for free speech. The army cannot permit the insidiousness and truculence of GAM’s maneuvers . . . that attempt to compromise the democratic international image of Guatemala.112
Although very similar threats preceded the murder of two leaders of GAM in March and April of 1984, the U.S. mass media entirely ignored this new information—despite strenuous efforts by GAM, the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, and their allies to elicit publicity. As in the past, the unworthiness of these victims remains an essential ingredient in the Guatemalan army’s continued freedom to kill.
3
Legitimizing versus Meaningless
Third World Elections:
El Salvador
Guatemala
Nicaragua
Third world elections provide an excellent testing ground for a propaganda model. Some elections are held in friendly client states to legitimize their rulers and regimes, whereas others are held in disfavored or enemy countries to legitimize their political systems. This natural dichotomization is strengthened by the fact that elections in the friendly client states are often held under U.S. sponsorship and with extensive U.S. management and public-relations support. Thus, in the Dominican Republic in 1966, and periodically thereafter, the United States organized what have been called “demonstration elections” in its client states, defined as those whose primary function is to convince the home population that the intervention is well intentioned, that the populace of the invaded and occupied country welcomes the intrusion, and that they are being given a democratic choice.1
The elections in El Salvador in 1982 and 1984 were true demonstration elections, and those held in Guatemala in 1984–85 were strongly supported by the United States for image-enhancing purposes. The election held in Nicaragua in 1984, by contrast, was intended to legitimize a government that the Reagan administration was striving to destabilize and overthrow. The U.S. government therefore went to great pains to cast the Nicaraguan