21 November 2019 — FAIR
CounterSpin interview with Alex Main on Bolivia coup
Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR’s Alex Main about the Bolivian coup for the November 15, 2019, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Category: Media
Unpacking Media Propaganda About Bolivia’s Election
11 November 2019 — FAIR
Pro-coup editorials rely on—and misreport—questionable evidence from the dubious OAS
To endorse the coup in Bolivia, numerous editorials in major US media outlets paint President Evo Morales as undemocratic. Exhibit A in their case is the Organization of American States’ (OAS) claims that there was fraud in the October 20 Bolivian election in which Morales was elected for a fourth term. They also argue that he should not have been allowed to run again in the first place.
Police in Bolivia Pepper Spray Journalist ‘On Purpose’ During Live Coverage of Anti-Coup Protests
16 November 2019 — Source: Common Dreams
“I hate to be the story because we are here to report on what is happening to the people in the amazing country,” said Al-Jazeera English senior correspondent Teresa Bo. “I hope it helps denounce that such practices cannot be tolerated. Not here not anywhere.”
Teresa Bo, a senior correspondent for Al-Jazeera was sprayed directly in the face—clearly “on purpose,” she says—while covering anti-coup demonstrators in the city of La Paz, Bolivia on Friday, November 15, 2019. (Photo: Al-Jazeera/Screenshot)
Becoming part of the story she was seeking to cover, international news correspondent Teresa Bo was assaulted by Bolivian state security forces on Friday—shot directly in the face, while on camera, with tear gas or pepper spray.
As Lula Emerges From Prison, US Media Ignore How Washington Helped Put Him There
15 November 2019 — FAIR
The Brazilian Supreme Court reversed a 2018 ruling on November 7, upholding the principle of innocent until proven guilty in the 1988 Constitution and declaring it illegal to jail defendants before their appeals processes have been exhausted. Within 24 hours, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was released to an adoring crowd of hundreds of union members and social movement activists who had maintained a camp outside the police station where he was held, shouting “good morning,” “good afternoon” and “good night” to him for 580 consecutive days.
Social Media Censorship Reaches New Heights as Twitter Permanently Bans Dissent
14 November 2019 — Mint Press
By Mnar Muhawesh Mnar Muhawesh @mnarmuh
Mnar Muhawesh speaks with journalist Daniel McAdams about being permanently banned from Twitter, social media censorship and more.
A small victory for free speech on Israel
11 November 2019 — The Electronic Intifada
Noam Chomsky has described attempts to limit what may be said at a London book launch as an “utter outrage.” Ashraf Amra APA images
When we first began organizing a launch event for a Noam Chomsky book, we suspected it might be targeted by pro-Israel activists.
After all the book, The Responsibility Of Intellectuals: Reflections by Noam Chomsky and Others after 50 Years, was based on a 2017 conference at University College London (UCL) that had been targeted by such activists.
The Incredible Disappearing Farage, and Other Electoral Oddities
6 November 2019 — Craig Murray
For a decade Nigel Farage has been flung into our living rooms continually by the BBC. Even when UKIP barely registered a blip in the opinion polls, he was a regular on Question Time and the other news, current affairs and politics programme. Farage’s celebrity was a BBC creation. He served an important purpose. At a time when the wealth gap was growing exponentially, and working conditions and real incomes of ordinary people were deteriorating sharply, Farage helped amplify the Establishment message that the cause of these problems was not the burgeoning class of billionaires sucking up the world’s resources, but rather the poor immigrants also scratching to make a living.
Media Conceal Chile’s State Criminality, Delegitimize Bolivian Democracy
5 November 2019 — FAIR
by Lucas Koerner
Chilean protester beaten by government forces (Twitter, 10/21/19)
Chile’s anti-neoliberal rebellion is entering its third week, and the brutal crackdown continues. Hard-right President Sebastian Piñera and his generals have effectively decreed the country’s oligarch-dominated democracy out of existence by sending soldiers into the streets to kill, maim and torture their own people.
And, for the most part, the Western corporate media blackout persists unabated.
‘International Actors in Haiti Have Been Guarantors of the Status Quo’
5 November 2019 — FAIR
Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR’s Jake Johnston about Haiti for the November 1, 2019, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
The Incredible Shrinking Overton Window by Caitlin Johnstone
4 November 2019 — Caitlin Johnson
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
~ Noam Chomsky
The plutocrat-owned narrative managers of the political/media class work constantly to shrink the Overton window, the spectrum of debate that is considered socially acceptable. They do this by framing more and more debates in terms of how the oligarchic empire should be sustained and supported, steering them away from debates about whether that empire should be permitted to exist at all.
Nazi-Normalizing Barf Journalism: A Brief History
1 November 2019 — FAIR
by Dorothee Benz
The New York Times‘ portrait (11/25/17) of what it called “the Nazi sympathizer next door.”
In the beginning was the profile of the Nazi next door, an inexplicable decision by the New York Times (11/25/17) to profile a right-wing extremist in the most sympathetic light possible. It was the most outrageous example of an outrageous genre of MSM—and particularly NYT—reporting: the never-ending effort to profile, study, explain, excuse and rationalize Trump voters. Without, of course, referring to them as racists. White men are always news that’s fit to print.
The Revolution Isn’t Being Televised – Media uninterested in protest movements around the world
26 October 2019 — FAIR
by Alan MacLeod
It’s all kicking off everywhere in 2019. Haitians are revolting against a corrupt political system and their President Jovenel Moïse, who many see as a kleptocratic US puppet. In Ecuador, huge public manifestations managed to force President Lenín Moreno to backtrack on his IMF-backed neoliberal package that would have sharply cut government spending and increased transport prices (FAIR.org, 10/23/19).
