WORK
BY GINA BAILEY
WORK
BY GINA BAILEY
Remember the Peruvian hostage crisis? In Lima, Peru, on the evening of Dec. 17, 1996, 14 members of the Peruvian People's Revolution, known as MRTA or Tupac Amaru, took as hostages the 500 guests at a Japanese embassy birthday party for Emperor Akihito.
Within days most hostages were released, with 72 males remaining in the embassy during four months of fruitless negotiation. Finally, on April 22, 1997, the Peruvian military stormed the embassy, resulting in the killings of all MRTA members, one hostage and two soldiers.
The crisis provided an opportunity for NewsWatch Canada to evaluate mainstream North American news coverage of a high-profile international event. If, as seems to be the case, the purpose of the MRTA hostage-taking was to draw international attention to widespread human rights abuses and to the growing gap between rich and poor since President Fujimori took power in 1990, then the action was a failure. The press blanked out these issues, focusing instead on the MRTA as "terrorists" and "Marxist-Leninists" - the American "bad boys" since the dissolution of the Soviet Union's "evil empire" - but never defining those terms.
The hostage-taking occurred within the context of a virtual news blackout of the oppressive aspects of the Fujimori regime: nearly 1,000 disappearances at the hands of Peruvian security forces; hundreds summarily executed; beatings, near drownings, electric shock and rapes of people detained on military bases; severe conditions in the prison for convicted "terrorists" at Yanamayo.
Instead, the North American press described Peru as a "democracy" and an "economic miracle."
The first part of the study focused on the first 10 days of the hostage-taking, since the frames of reporting - the selection, interpretation and presentation of events - are usually well established within the first week of an "act of terrorism."
The study sample included 38 articles from two Canadian papers, The Globe and Mailand The Toronto Star,and 38 from two American ones, The New York Timesand The Washington Post,which are perceived as the most prestigious papers in the two countries. Coverage of these four papers was benchmarked against a variety of sources outside the mainstream media that included Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,publications from Carleton University's School of International Affairs, Covert Action Quarterly,the U.S. Department of State's Human Rights Reports,and many others.
Three of the four papers had correspondents stationed in Lima - the exception was The Globe and Mail - and could have been expected to provide a greater range of voices in their news coverage because their reporters were on the scene. This was not the case. Official government sources overwhelmed all others in the four newspapers.
Canadian papers were similar to the American, with the obvious exception that the Canadian ones relied more on Canadian government sources while the American papers referenced American government sources more frequently. The American papers did use more non-government "experts" (in nearly one-third of the stories), but these largely parroted what government sources had already said. Canadian papers used Peruvian government sources in 34% of their stories, Canadian government sources in 21%, Japanese government in 17%, U.S. government in 7%, and other governments in 8% of the stories. The two American papers used Peruvian government sources in 38% of their stories, U.S. government in 23%, Japanese government in 14%, Canadian government in 8%, and other government sources in 12% of the stories. Released hostages were sources in 16% of Canadian stories and 13% of American stories, while MRTA members were sources in 9% (three stories) of Canadian and 17% of American stories.
In contrast to the large number of government spokespersons, representatives of human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the Peruvian people themselves were virtually frozen out of the coverage. Peruvian people were sources in one Canadian and one American story, while human rights organizations were sources in one Canadian and two American stories.
Such overwhelming reliance on official sources in both countries suggests a "lap-dog" rather than a "watch-dog" role for the media in international affairs reporting.
How was the hostage-taking reported in the two countries? During the initial coverage of the crisis, the Canadian papers used the word "terrorist" in 20% of their stories and the phrase 'Marxist-Leninist" in 12%. The American papers relied on these derogatory terms more frequently, using "terrorist" in 33% of stories, and "Marxist- Leninist" in 35%. "Marxist-Leninist" was never defined or even explained. Clearly, the term was not descriptive, but pejorative. The papers in both countries shut out alternative interpretations: the phrase "human rights" appeared in just two Canadian and three American stories.
By labelling the MRTA as terrorists, of course, the newspapers closed off any discussion of problems with Peruvian society and economy that the MRTA had claimed - although not in the media - had prompted their actions. If, instead, the MRTA had been labeled as "social fighters" or even "freedom fighters," and if their demands, in which they called Fujimori's tax policies "burglaries," had been publicized, then an entirely different message might have been conveyed to North American readers.
Are the MRTA terrorists? According to Amnesty International, 30,000 Peruvians have been murdered or abducted since 1980. Amnesty estimates that MRTA has been responsible for 1% of these, or 300 murders. Clearly MRTA are not blameless victims. But, says Amnesty International, 45% of the killings were committed by the anti-government "rebel" group Shining Path, and 53% of the killings - 16,000 people - were committed by the Peruvian military. The four papers never applied the word "terrorist" to the Peruvian military.
In fact, the four papers omitted any mention of the training received by Peruvian army officers at the School of the Americas in Georgia, which specializes in training death-squad police and military for Latin American duty. Nor did the press report on allegations of corruption and drug-trafficking by one of Fujimori's closest advisors. And finally, the press omitted all mention of the majority of MRTA demands for the release of hostages that related to economic and social reforms.
Several demands received abundant coverage, including the demands to release former MRTA members from prison and to improve prison conditions. Other demands were not reported: repeal the amnesty law that absolves paramilitary death squads; re-establish union rights; abolish new land law; recognize rural communal lands; modify economic policies.
The study concludes that there were specific blind spots (patterns of omission) in North American reporting on the Peruvian incident. Frozen out were the voices of the Peruvian people, MRTA, human rights organizations, and women. Frozen out, too, were important issues: organized state-sponsored murder/terrorism; North American investments in Latin America; human rights issues; the impacts of neo-liberal economic "reforms." And, except for consistent differences in the use of terms like "terrorist," Canadian news coverage today appears to be more like American coverage than it was 10 years ago.
Rather than building bridges to world peace, it would seem that North American media are acting as roadblocks.