American Imperialism and the Inter American Press Association (IAPA)

[Judi Lynn]

American Imperialism and the Inter American Press Association (IAPA)
17th April 2008

~snip~
The IAPA blows

Parallel to its link with dictatorial governments, the history of the American great press cartel records a certain number of aggressions against the constitutionally constituted governments, in equal terms to the imperialist interests in the region. Thus, Garguverich stresses the soon conformation of an axis among the CIA, the IAPA and agencies of news as part of the structure of US domination, making a powerful instrument for the destabilizing plans in Latin America<5>.

Perhaps the most symbolic case of the destabilizing action of the IAPA has been the dirty campaign against the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, who was overthrown in 1973 due to the combination of Chilean reactionary forces and the CIA, since the implementation of a strong psychological war.

Chilean journalist Hernan Uribe affirms that along the whole history of Chile, there was no period in which dominated a freedom of information that even fell into debauchery and in clear violations to professional ethics as in Allende’s term in office. President Allende himself, in 1970, declared to /Prensa Latina/ agency that his government would favor unlimited freedom of press, but would also favor that all the social agents and ideological trends had access to opinion.

“Currently, those rights were officially established, but its practice appears restricted to the minor sectors which had a prominent situation from the financial point of view,” expressed Allende, according the also journalist Ernesto Carmona. His words, obviously, would not please the media magnates. Even less when Allende pointed towards a main topic, indicating that the media in capitalist regimes turned not in instruments of information, but in instruments of misinformations of the people’s interests.

Oriented by the CIA, the Chilean opponent media, headed by the journal /El Mercurio/, could not answer Allende’s request of informing with objectivity and to maintain with nobility their points of view. On the contrary, they devoted to spread lies and to try to give an image of persecution to the press, adding fuel to the fire in which they would cook Pinochet’s dictatorship. For that reason, Allende claimed, on February 12^th 1973, “We are obliged to point out the lack of moral authority and the distorted interest of those who shelter on the Inter American Press Association. We are not concerned about the critics. We not only accept it, we also claim for it.”

Uribe also stresses that it was also the CIA the responsible for directing the great Chilean press and the IAPA members in a campaign of black propaganda against Allende, fact proved by unclassified documents in the United States. On this context, the journal /El Mercurio/, property of Agustin Edwards, who performed as the IAPA vice president, received enough dollars for his campaign against Allende, and he even stopped circulating for a day, pleading threats “in order to form a misinformation scandal which claimed ‘for the closing’ of /El Mercurio/.”

In accordance with this Chilean journalist, the lies were in such a way that the campaign denounced that the press would be assaulted cutting the supply of paper, when the truth was that the government had no relation with the business of the paper because the monopolistic producer of that instrument was a private company.

On the research carried out by Gargurevich is proved that this campaign of destabilization at the Chile of Allende included the deterioration on the image of the /Unidad Popular/ (People’s Union) government, internal and externally as well. That ‘external front’ was made by the journals member of the IAPA. The news were written by the CIA, spread by the great agencies and published by the IAPA members.

More:
http://www.theworldismycountry.org/allposts/american-imperialism-and-the-inter-american-press-association-iapa

[Judi Lynn]

1. Chile: El Mercurio & the Coup

Chile: El Mercurio & the Coup

One of the most shocking parts of the documentary is when it is mentioned that when Salvador Allende won , Agustín Edwards, the newspaper owner, met Henry Kissinger and the director of the CIA, Richard Helms, with the aim of making it impossible for the socialist leader to take up his post. What interest did El Mercurio have, so that it involved itself in this operation? Agüero explains, "The interest has to have been the defense of their own newspaper because they thought that Allende's government was totalitarian, that it was going to expropriate the paper. In the end, Agustín Edwards was defending his own economic interests...."

Agüero concludes, "we are showing El Mercurio's criminal anticommunism. That is to say, El Mercurio has the right to be opposed to the Communist Party, but what the paper did during the last forty years is a direct action of repression which resulted in deaths among the opponents of the dictatorship".

More information on El Mercurio and the coup:
Daniel Brandt writes,

On the day that Helms received his instructions from Nixon, the owner of El Mercurio, wealthy Chilean businessman Agustin Edwards, conferred with top officials of the Nixon administration.61 The El Mercurio network consists of newspapers, radio station, ad agencies, and a wire service; it dominates the Chilean media in audience, size, and prestige, and includes the three principal newspapers of Santiago and seven provincial papers.62 In the seven-month period from September 9, 1971 to April 11, 1972 the CIA spent $1.5 million on El Mercurio,63 but the funding also preceded and followed this period. <...> The El Mercurio network was used by the CIA to "launder propaganda, disinformation, fake themes and scare stories which were then circulated through 70 percent of the Chilean press and 90 percent of the Chilean radio. The USIA and the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in turn circulated these stories all over the world."67

More:
http://memoryinlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2008/11/chile-el-mercurio-coup.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. U.S. Responsibility for the Coup in Chile (Augustin Edwards, El Mercurio, IAPA)

After Allende's victory, Nixon, Kissinger, Helms, and John Mitchell met on September 15, 1970. Helms came from that meeting with the impression that "Nixon wanted a plan for action that would include a military coup and a broad-based destabilization effort that would 'make the economy scream.'" Helms' notes of the session read, "Not concerned with risks involved. Full time job -- best men we have."57 An additional $6 million was spent over the next three years,58 including $1.5 million to rightist candidates in the March, 1973 congressional election.59 The grand total of $8 to $11 million spend by the CIA since 1970 may have been worth $40 to $50 million after being funneled through the black market.60

On the day that Helms received his instructions from Nixon, the owner of El Mercurio, wealthy Chilean businessman Agustin Edwards, conferred with top officials of the Nixon administration.61 The El Mercurio network consists of newspapers, radio station, ad agencies, and a wire service; it dominates the Chilean media in audience, size, and prestige, and includes the three principal newspapers of Santiago and seven provincial papers.62 In the seven-month period from September 9, 1971 to April 11, 1972 the CIA spent $1.5 million on El Mercurio,63 but the funding also preceded and followed this period. El Mercurio may have been the recipient of almost half of the total CIA expenditures in Chile since 1970.64 In addition to the sort of ads that were used successfully in the 1964 campaign, CIA funding also sponsored mailings before the election on forged Popular Unity stationery to hundreds of thousands of voters. These mailings asked voters to list household goods and indicate whether they would be willing to share with the poor after the election.65 The CIA even purchased a radio station for the right-wing.66 The El Mercurio network was used by the CIA to "launder propaganda, disinformation, fake themes and scare stories which were then circulated through 70 percent of the Chilean press and 90 percent of the Chilean radio. The USIA and the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in turn circulated these stories all over the world."67 CIA agents at El Mercurio included Enno Hobbing, Alvaro Puga, and Juraj Domic.68

More:
http://www.namebase.org/chile.html

~~~~~~
CHILE: Media Empires Undermine Pluralistic Democracy
3rd December 2009
By Daniela Estrada
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49522

SANTIAGO, Dec 3 (IPS) – Chile is a classic example of the concentration of media ownership in too few hands, says Chilean journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg in her latest book “Los magnates de la prensa” (The Press Magnates). If the state does not exercise stricter regulation, democracy itself may be undermined, she warns.

“Today, in the run-up to the celebration of the Bicentennial (of Chilean independence), I think we are facing the worst situation for freedom of expression and ownership of the media, in terms of democracy and pluralism, since the early 1990s,” when democracy was restored after 17 years of dictatorship, Mönckeberg told IPS.

Mönckeberg, who was awarded the National Journalism Prize this year, said concentrated ownership of the media is a worldwide problem, but added that “Chile is a rather special case” because the system is “more tightly closed, and very lightly regulated,” and has been taken over by “extremely right wing” economic groups.

Her book, “The Press Magnates: Media Concentration in Chile”, published under the Debate imprint by Random House Mondadori, was launched in Spanish on Nov. 11 in Santiago.

In its 522 pages, the journalist spells out in detail who owns the media in Chile, the help some of them received during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of the late general Augusto Pinochet, and the intricate political, economic, social and religious networks they comprise today.

The disturbing diagnosis by Mönckeberg, who is the present registrar at the University of Chile’s Communication and Image Institute, is set out on page one of the book, which she was able to finish thanks to a grant from the government National Book and Reading Fund.

“Paradoxically, when the Chilean press came to birth it was critical, libertarian and republican, flowing from the passionate pen of Fray Camilo Henríquez, who founded La Aurora de Chile, the country’s first newspaper, soon after the Declaration of Independence” in the early 19th century, she writes.

“But now that Chile is approaching its Bicentennial celebrations, its newspapers serve the interests of influential rightwing economic groups that are more concerned with consolidating their profits and projecting their ideology, than with reporting from a broad perspective and encouraging communication between citizens,” she adds.

Concentration of ownership is the overwhelming reality in the printed press; radio stations “show similar symptoms”; and television, launched originally by the Catholic University of Valparaíso, is highly commercial in nature, swamped with showbiz celebrities, reality shows, gory crime reports and sensationalism, Mönckeberg’s book says.

Among the media magnates scrutinised by the journalist and academic are Agustín Edwards Eastman, owner of the El Mercurio chain of newspapers, Álvaro Saieh, head of the Consorcio Periodístico de Chile (COPESA), and Sebastián Piñera, owner of the Chilevisión television channel and the presidential candidate for the rightwing Coalition for Change.

The El Mercurio group, with around 20 national and regional newspapers, and COPESA, which controls the newspapers La Tercera, La Cuarta and La Hora, a radio network and the magazines Qué Pasa and Paula, comprise a “duopoly” in the Chilean press.

“There is no room in these media for critical voices, or for views that differ from the editorial line, which takes a conservative position in politics and a neoliberal one in economics. Even the letters to the editor are examined through the filter of those who control these newspapers,” Mönckeberg writes.

“Their policy is to exclude articles that would displease the owners or their networks of friends, partners and advertisers. The journalists know this and toe the line, keeping quiet or practising self-censorship when they foresee that a given topic could be thorny or inconvenient,” she says.

More:
http://www.theworldismycountry.org/allposts/chile-media-empires-undermine-pluralistic-democracy

[Judi Lynn]

3. Inter American Press Association

Inter American Press Association
From SourceWatch

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) describes itself as "a non-profit organization dedicated to defending freedom of expression and of the press throughout the Americas." <1> Membership is largely comprised of media companies and media owners; IAPA represents "over 1300 newspapers and magazines". Although its charter may state that it defends "freedom of expression", the real purpose of the organization is defend the ownership and control of media operations, i.e., the freedom of the media company owners.

As the explanation by Fred Landis below indicates, IAPA has had a long and close relationship with the CIA and its affiliated organs – these were responsible for setting up the association in the first place. Beginning the mid-1990s, the CIA sought to keep a lower profile, and instead the US relationship came in the for of the National Endowment for Democracy and its many affiliated organizations. Since the mid-1990s, the NED and its affiliated groups perform the media coordination role performed by the CIA in the past – although some of the people involved are the same.<1>

Controversy

In July 2002, Al Giordano from Narco News sent an open letter to IAPA when "with colleagues in authentic journalism and independent media," they "launched an international dialogue about the role of "press freedom" organizations. We are focusing on the three such organizations with the largest budgets: the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and... Miami-based Inter-American Press Association." The letter went on to note that: "Your organization is nothing more than a lobbying group for the owners of a commercial industry - newspapers - and the IAPA's cynical use of the "press freedom" issue is only wielded to expand the economic and political powers of the owners of commercial media, abusive powers that are increasingly in conflict with the free expression rights of working journalists and of a majority of members of the public." <2>

In 2002 then-IAPA president Robert Cox issued a press release endorsing the short-lived coup.<2>

In 2006 the Venezuelan "government accused the Inter American Press Association of “disinformation to attack Venezuela”." <3>

Murky Chapters

IAPA becomes a useful tool when a Latin American country undergoes democratic or revolutionary change. Fred Landis describes how newspapers in the target country become propaganda instruments manipulated by the CIA and its affiliated organs:

IAPA stands ready, with all its hundreds of cooperating member newspapers, to scream "Marxist Threat to Free Press" if any attempt is made by the target government to restrict the flow of hostile propaganda. In 1969 the CIA had five agents working as media executives at El Mercurio, all of whom in subsequent years were elevated to the Board of Directors of IAPA. The owner of El Mercurio was made head of the Freedom of the Press committee, and later President. IAPA bylaws permitted only working owners to be members, so the bylaws were changed to accommodate him. Then many of the CIA operatives at Copley News Service were made members of the Board of Directors of IAPA. Immediately before the campaign to oust socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley, Jamaica Daily Gleaner publisher Oliver Clarke was added to the Executive Committee; he has now been promoted to Treasurer. At the last annual convention in San Diego, IAPA elevated Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Jr., to its Board of Directors. At that time he was not an editor or publisher of La Prensa, but the CIA needed him because he had the same name as his martyred father. After his elevation he was belatedly made Assistant Director of La Prensa, and when he was recently added to the IAPA Executive Committee, La Prensa began carrying the IAPA membership credential in its masthead. At the last IAPA meeting in Rio de Janeiro in October, speeches, including those by Vice-President Bush, were dominated by alarmist references to the situation of the press in Nicaragua.

Obviously the owner of a conservative newspaper in Latin America does not need CIA money to be against a socialist government. The assistance provided by the CIA is primarily technical, not financial. Without CIA help, the local newspaper's opposition would be openly stated on the editorial page in language reflecting the ideology of the local conservative elite. That would be ideological warfare, not psychological warfare. But the CIA is not concerned, in these operations, with local ideology; it is concentrating on the use of its bag of technological dirty tricks. One of these tricks is disinformation.<3><3>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Inter_American_Press_Association

[Wilms]

4. ;0

[naaman fletcher]

5. Except of course

Nowhere do your ramblings actually deny that in fact your heroes restrict freedom of the press.

[Wilms]

6. And your link that shows that is...?

[naaman fletcher]

7. what link?

I simply pointed out that she attacks this group for claiming that her heroes restrict freedom of the press. I merely pointed out that her ramblings don't actually even deny that point. What possible link can I post? I was simply commenting on her post.

[Wilms]

8. Wilms clears throat.