Fw: FAIR comment on the Contra story (fwd)

[Doug Millison]

I believe it was Samuel Johnson who said (I'm quoting from memory)
something like, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote for anything but money."
A bit extreme, perhaps, but, as revenge or revisionism can be, cash remains
a powerful motivator nonetheless.

Cordially,
Doug

At 3:22 PM 6/12/97, Meg Larson wrote:
>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
>>
>>

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
D O U G  M I L L I S O N<<<<<>>>>>millison at online-journalist.com