Fw: FAIR comment on the Contra story (fwd)

[Meg Larson]

Had this on the hard drive; in light of the discussion re: Gary Webb and
his removal from not only the "Dark Alliance" series but his "banishment"
to Cupertino I thought this might be apropos.  

"The impulse to create beauty is rather rare in literary men . . .
Far ahead of it comes the yearning to make money.  And after the yearning
to make money comes the yearning to make a noise"
                                                      ---H.L. Mencken

Meg Larson
Saginaw Valley State University
mgl at tardis.svsu.edu

----------
> From: Olson, Gary L <meglo01 at moravian.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <forum-l at moravian.edu>
> Subject: FAIR comment on the Contra story (fwd)
> Date: Tuesday, January 07, 1997 12:48 PM
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> FORWARDED FROM: Olson, Gary L
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 20:19:49 -0800
> From: Nathan Newman <newman at garnet.berkeley.edu>
> Reply-To: LEFTNEWS - News of Interests to Progressives and Leftists
>      <LEFTNEWS at CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU>
> To: Multiple recipients of list LEFTNEWS <LEFTNEWS at CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU>
> Subject: FAIR comment on the Contra story (fwd)
> 
> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 15:59:27 -0800 (PST)
> From: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting <fair at igc.apc.org>
> To: Recipients of fair-l <fair-l at igc.apc.org>
> Subject: Coverage of Contra-Crack
>  
> From: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting <fair at igc.apc.org>
>  
> FAIR Press Release                               December 18, 1996
>  
> NEW REPORT BLASTS MEDIA COVERAGE OF CONTRA-CRACK STORY
>  
> A national media watch group today released a report highly
> critical of major media reaction to the San Jose Mercury News
> series linking the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras to the spread of
> crack cocaine in urban America.
>  
> The report, to be published next month by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy
> In Reporting), focuses on three newspapers - the Washington Post,
> New York Times and Los Angeles Times - which have printed lengthy
> articles attacking the Mercury News series.
>  
> Noting that the assessments by those three newspapers are "still
> reverberating in the national media's echo chamber," FAIR's report
> faults the papers for heavy reliance on official sources inside the
> CIA and other agencies with vested interests in undercutting the
> Mercury News accounts. FAIR's report (to be published in the
> Jan./Feb. 1997 EXTRA!) also highlights a history of national media
> suppression and marginalization of the contra-cocaine story in the
> 1980s.
>  
> * FAIR's researchers found that Mercury News reporter Gary Webb was
> frequently assailed for failing to prove what he had never claimed
> in the first place. The report points out that Webb's series did
> not assert the CIA was guilty of dealing crack in U.S. inner
> cities.  Some of the attacks harped on "what Webb had already
> acknowledged in his articles - that  while he proves contra links
> to major cocaine importation, he can't identify specific CIA
> officials who knew of or condoned the trafficking."
>  
> * "Journalistic critics of the Mercury News offered little to rebut
> the paper's specific pieces of evidence" - including  testimony and
> law enforcement documents and comments - indicating that a pair of
> Nicaraguan cocaine traffickers "may have been protected by federal
> agents."
>  
> * Although the Washington Post in particular took issue with the
> Mercury News for referring to the Nicaraguan contras as "the CIA's
> army," the FAIR report describes use of the phrase as "solid
> journalism" that highlights a relationship "fundamentally relevant
> to the story. The army was formed at the instigation of the CIA,
> its leaders were selected by and received salaries from the agency,
> and CIA officers controlled day-to-day battlefield strategies." The
> report criticizes what it calls a "newsroom culture of denial" that
> dodged such historical realities.
>  
> * The Los Angeles Times joined the other two dailies in downplaying
> the importance of crack dealer Ricky Ross, who was supplied by a
> pair of Nicaraguan cocaine smugglers linked to the Contras. Yet two
> years ago (12/20/94), the Los Angeles Times described Ross as the
> "king  of  crack" whose "coast-to-coast conglomerate" was
> responsible for "a staggering turnover that  put  the drug within
> reach of anyone with a few dollars."  FAIR's report notes that the
> L.A. Times reversal on Ross "reads like a show-trial
> recantation."
>  
> * Depictions of African-Americans as prone to paranoia "quickly
> became a stylish media fixation," the report charged.  "This theme
> of black paranoia accompanied all three of the major papers'
> attacks on the Mercury News series."  Ironically, FAIR concluded,
> top editors at the Washington Post, New York Times and L.A. Times
> ended up ignoring evidence that did not fit their preconceived
> outlook - "the true mark of the delusional mindset."
>  
> * The FAIR report concludes that the high-profile attacks on the
> Mercury News by the New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times
> "were clearly driven by a need to defend their shoddy record on the
> contra-cocaine story - involving a decade-long suppression of
> evidence." In recent months, those papers have promoted "the notion
> that contra participation in drug trafficking is old news - a
> particularly ironic claim coming from newspapers that went out of
> their way to ignore or disparage key information during the 1980s."
> (The obstruction of a 1987 report on  contra-cocaine links by Time
> magazine is also noted.)
>  
> The full report will be available on FAIR's web page: www.fair.org/fair
>                                 ***
> To subscribe to FAIR's magazine, EXTRA!, call 800-847-3993 during
> East coast business hours.
> 
> 
> ------ Message Header Follows ------
> Received: from moravian.edu by smtpgate.moravian.edu
>   (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9a for Windows NT(tm))
>   id AA-1997Jan07.100932.1173.290457; Tue, 07 Jan 1997 10:09:32 -0500
> Received: from jade (jade.moravian.edu) by moravian.edu (5.x/SMI-SVR4)
>  id AA19627; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 10:09:30 -0500
> Received: by jade id AA29016; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 10:09:29 -0500
> Received: from fasmail.fas.harvard.edu(140.247.30.46) by jade via smap
(V1.3)
>  id sma029001; Tue Jan  7 10:09:04 1997
> Received: from scunix4.harvard.edu by fasmail.fas.harvard.edu with SMTP
id
> KAA06884
> Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 10:08:48 -0500 (EST)
> From: Jeffrey Booth <booth2 at husc.harvard.edu>
> X-Sender: booth2 at scunix4.harvard.edu
> To: franalan at aol.com, tonywil at www.hotmail.com, tpotter at law.harvard.edu,
>         daffeln at hsph.harvard.edu, carens at husc.harvard.edu,
>         rkim at hohp.harvard.edu, klobrien at husc.harvard.edu,
meglo01 at moravian.edu
> Subject: FAIR comment on the Contra story (fwd)
> Message-Id:
<Pine.HPP.3.95.970107100558.10518A-100000 at scunix4.harvard.edu>
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> 
>