Blog From Bolivia 1; "Journalists" 0

See Schulz's January 17 post, The U.S. Press, Bolivia, and Riots of the Imagination.

Specifically, Schulz shows how three U.S. "journalists" (and consequently one U.S. presidential candidate whose aids apparently read and believe the kind of trash that passes for journalism up there) completely rewrote the history of the fall of disgraced Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, filling the story with phobic myths from the recesses of their own imaginations.

On the blogger's chopping block: Jane Bussey of The Miami Herald, William F. Jasper of The New American and Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post... Schulz reports from Cochabamba, where he's lived, followed and participated in the water wars...

...a series of US journalists, writing about Bolivia from afar, keep on making the same, whopping mistake. I saw two more such articles in the US press just today.

They keep saying that Bolivia’s ex-President, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, was kicked out of office in October 2003 as a result of violence on the part of the people. In fact, the violence was on the part of the government, directed at the people.

He then quotes the errant reports from these three desk journalists in Gringolandia.

Such as Jane Bussey:

"...violent protests against former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada forced his October 2003 resignation and scuttled proposals to build a gas pipeline through Chile -- Bolivia's long-time archrival."

And also Jasper:

“Riots in Bolivia caused President Lozada to resign in 2003…”

And also the fact-phobic Diehl, who particularly has a long track record of "reporting" from his desk about events he never saw and would never dirty his hands to get near:

"In Bolivia, the Chavez-funded Movement Toward Socialism has already driven one democratically elected president from office through violent protests.”

(Diehl's knowingly false claim that Bolivias MAS party is "Chavez-funded" just slips by the keystone cop editors at The Washington Post, a newspaper once considered a pillar of journalism. He offers no evidence of his claim because... there is none. But Diehl never let the facts get in the way of a cheap smear.)

Schulz is particularly adept at showing, then, how the invention of falsehoods by "journalists" such as these does cause harm, quoting an op ed column by U.S. Senator John Kerry in the same Miami Herald (a.k.a. Oligarch's Daily) in which Rand Beers or some other idiot aide of Kerry's ghostwrote:

“In Bolivia, [President] Bush encouraged the election of a pro-market, pro-U.S. president and did nothing to help the country when riots shook the capital and the president was forced to flee.”

Schulz offers the true facts about how Sanchez de Lozada caused the violence and that led to his need to flee the country, and concludes:

When I write publicly, whether in this Blog, in our Democracy Center newsletter, or in my newspaper articles in the US, I feel a real duty to get the facts right. I can’t understand why these reporters and others are willing to get the facts so wrong. Bad reporting becomes a false assumption of fact, one powerful enough to sway a Presidential candidate and in turn the foreign policy of the United States.

My friend Jay Rosen over at New York University, a keen-eyed media watcher, says that "the bloggers vs. journalists (debate) is over.

I think, respectfully, that Jay is wrong.

I say it has only just begun.

The debate on the Commercial Media's terms was couched as "bloggers are not real journalists." Yes, that part is over.

But now comes the blogger terms of the debate: that "journalists" are usually not real journalists, and that bloggers often practice better journalism.

The Civil War of Journalism is closer every day, kind readers.

Grab your gun, er, keypad and join the battle.