Tag: Haiti

‘Great Television Makes Bad Journalism’

Get a load of Robert Jensen’s article, posted today, “Great Television Makes Bad Journalism: Media Failures in Haiti Coverage;”

“[I]n the past week we’ve heard journalists repeat endlessly the observation that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Did it ever occur to editors to assign reporters to ask why? […] The immediate suffering in Haiti is the result of a natural disaster, but that suffering is compounded by political disasters of the past two centuries, and considerable responsibility for those disasters lies not only with Haitian elites but also with U.S. policymakers. […] But there’s little discussion of how the problems of contemporary Haiti can be traced to those policies. […] When mainstream journalists dare to mention this political history, they tend to scrub clean the uglier aspects of U.S. policy, absolving U.S. policymakers of responsibility in “the star-crossed relationship” between the two nations […] The news media, of course, have a right to make their own choices about what to cover. But we citizens have a right to expect more.”

I’ve spent the past week, say, casually reading Paul Farmers concisely detailed book, The Uses Of Haiti. And what I’ve read, thus far, from Farmer’s book, Jensen has “duplicated”  here. Probably the best, briefest bunch of words I’ve happened to read, personally, concerning Haiti’s tragic history, Western influences on that history, and the media’s failure to accurately inform us, the ignorant masses, on the relevancy of those facts. Not to mention the truth, in general.

I recommend reading it…

Haiti Occupied? And For What?

In today’s first segment of Democracy Now’s broadcast, Amy Goodman filed a report straight from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. See what you haven’t seen, or are likely to witness, in the mainstream media. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!

Near the beginning of Amy’s piece, she talks to Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, where he says;

“I think it has real potential to be an occupation. If there are 12,000 soldiers here, it is an occupation. I’ve not known of any violence at the hands of the American military. We’ve also just barely had the beginning of collaboration with them, literally within the last thirty minutes. General Keane, their operations person, finally showed up here after some time. And the military is helping us secure the grounds. But of course this is an occupation. It’s not a—this is a disaster area. Warm bodies help, but military is potentially very destructive in this environment.”

But in conjunction to what Cynthia McKinney wrote yesterday, the words I cited above, are ridiculously damnable (against perceived American intentions, not Dr. Lyon, of course);

“I shudder to think that the “rollback” policies believed in by some foreign policy advisors to President Obama could use a prolonged U.S. military presence in Haiti as a springboard for rollback of areas in Latin America that have liberated themselves from U.S. neo-colonial domination. I would hate to think that this would even be attempted under the presidency of Barack Obama. All of us must have our eyes wide open on Haiti and other parts of the world now dripping in blood as a result of the relentless onward march of the U.S. military machine…”

Next month’s Anti-Empire Report is sure to be mighty interesting…

Haiti and Assumption

I’ve spent much of my attention recently, and on this blog, especially, writing about Haiti, and the aftermath of the earthquake last week. And before I go on I feel I must state, by no means, do I pretend to know everything, and Haiti is most definitely included in that “everything.”

But I do know, and what concerns most gravely, is the ridiculous amount of assuming I hear and see coming from various “news” sources. “How we” — as if it were up to us — “should rebuild/save/help Haiti.” Are they serious?

I urge people to give today’s 3rd instalment of The Current. Anna-Maria interviewed Rebecca Solnit for an important context in how regular people face calamity;

“Rebecca Solnit has studied the ways that cities respond to crises from San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake to the Halifax explosion of 1917 to New York City after 9/11, and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She thinks she’s found another element to the narrative … one that often goes overlooked and undervalued…”

But what I most wanted to address today is an issue I felt I may have inadvertently communicated. That being Haiti needs our help, and without that help, they couldn’t possibly survive. While parts of me aren’t sure that isn’t entirely true, given the extraordinary strength of the disaster they are currently facing, I merely meant we need to help them help themselves…

Continue reading Haiti and Assumption