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AGUSTIN BLAZQUEZ |
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U.S. Media: An Enemy From Within
© 2003 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez and Jaums Sutton
Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2003
Cuban Americans keep asking: “Why don’t Americans understand the plight
of the Cubans? Why do they accept Fidel Castro?” Herein lie the answers.
The media’s goal is supposed to be disseminating information. And we are
all supposed to be concerned about what is best for the country, so we
can accept a little slant toward information in that direction. But we
tend to lose sight of the fact that the real, working goal of the media
is not any of that. It’s to make money.
OK, perhaps that’s a weakness of our capitalist system, where the
monetary successes of individuals and groups take the lead. (I would
quickly add that the weaknesses of the alternative systems far outweigh
this one.)
And an important characteristic of our system is that the media are
self-policed in the area of slanting the information being disseminated,
since content and attitude are, for the most part, left up to the
individuals or the organization. The current leanings seem clear to
many, though the major public forum in which to raise the issue, the
media, is understandably reluctant to publicly admit to a slant.
And once a slant is established, the tendency is for the slant to
increase because of survival instincts (to attract those with the same
slant as both sources and employees). Thus the employees tend to be
like-minded. Most know, but most don’t say it out loud, that the media
have been infiltrated by the left.
And, of course, if you are left-minded yourself, you won’t notice a
slant in your direction – you will just find yourself liking and
agreeing with what you hear.
This leads directly to the major problem, where things can get
dangerous. Beyond its accepted goal of disseminating information, the
media can also become a tool to change public opinion when someone tries
to affect an outcome or affect peoples’ beliefs by way of choosing what
information will be disseminated.
And it’s easy to slide down that hill when the road already has a slant.
Not to frighten, but this is such a fundamental process of communism
that you find it in every single communist government that has ever
existed. Not a single exception. You need tools like that when the
advantages of your system of government are good only for you, and the
elite you have to have surrounding and protecting yourself, but bad for
everyone else.
You certainly don’t want everybody to know about that, so you take over
the main source of information for everybody and carefully plan every
bit of information that is presented.
But it works quite well even in free societies. For example, most
Americans form their opinions about what is going on outside their
immediate lives through information that comes their way about what is
going on around the world. They tend to seek out information about
topics they have a particular interest in.
For other topics, the information tends to come to them seemingly at
random, primarily from the media – TV, radio, newspapers, magazines,
etc. Thus, individuals’ beliefs are significantly affected by
information from the media.
In a free society, however (or should I say “fortunately”), this slant
can’t lean too far from the mainstream or the mainstream will turn its
back and ratings will go down. Note that the money goal is not all bad.
Recently, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech providing
details about the goings-on in Iraq, the media did polls to gauge the
citizens’ reaction. When a high percentage was found to support the Bush
administration’s stance, the media realized they had to change their
slant from challenging the administration’s view to instead challenging
its challengers, which you could see on the Sunday morning talk shows of
Feb. 9, 2003.
And the media reacted by also providing previously un-disseminated
information about Iraq. Did you see Tom Brokaw on the David Letterman
show on Feb. 6, 2003, talking about his trips to Iraq? He revealed
serious details I’d never heard before that were in support of the Bush
administration. And he didn’t even have a book to promote.
So, on to answer the question about Castro. The media like him because
he is a novelty. He is unique in the world. He is working on (against)
his 10th U.S. president. But that’s not enough. The fact that he has
gotten away with killing so many thousands of people increases his value
to the media because it increases his novelty to the danger level.
Seeing Barbara Walters tooling around in a jeep with someone who has
caused the deaths of some 115,000 people is too exciting to resist.
Ratings go up, so advertising rates go up.
They have to be careful how much truth about him they portray, however,
because too much bad stuff is a turn-off for many viewers. It’s a
delicate balance. And anyway, too much truth about him and he will cut
off their source of information and interviews. He has done that many
times, but the media won’t tell you about that.
In my first article of 2003, “Castro Gets the Coverage, Not His
Victims,” I mentioned the latest installment in a series of superficial
and misleading reports from NBC’s “good girl” Andrea Mitchell. (I say
“good girl” because she was awarded with an interview for portraying
Castro the way he likes to be portrayed.) I saw a segment of it on Dec.
31, 2002, on the “Today” show.
In my article I talked about Andrea featuring, an affable Castro,
looking all “presidential” in a suit, talking and joking around. “The
usual, always-beneficial-to-Castro ‘reports’ about the declared (never
substantiated) wonders of Castroland. Showing the usual, tired (though
freshly painted!) sites, lots of smiling, adoring faces the tyrant wants
for Andrea and the American people to see and NBC graciously provides
the opportunity.”
This kind of report, while convenient for the media and for Castro,
causes revulsion for a Cuban American – because it makes light of the
fact that he caused the destruction of our country, families and lives.
That’s all.
Take a look at the comment of Elena M. Borkland, a very talented visual
artist and editor, who wrote to me after MSNBC showed the entire
one-hour interview on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2003. Elena said, “My stomach
turned as I watched the first few minutes of Andrea Mitchell's interview
– my husband had to turn it off before I became – literally – physically
ill.”
Then she wrote to MSNBC, “After watching less than one minute of Andrea
Mitchell's groveling in front of the western hemisphere's cruelest
despot, I was forced to turn the TV off – the effect was more emetic
than two cups of Syrup of Ipecac.
“Have you no regard for Castro's thousands of victims? So-called
reporters such as Ms. Mitchell continue to help him try to deceive us
with his illusions of social justice, free education and health care,
but the world is less and less deceived as it sees the actual Cuban
reality: Dr. Castro lives like an emperor on the island while his
captive subjects are forced to live in the House of Pain. Castro's
monstrous hypocrisy should be exposed by honest journalists rather than
being catered to.”
I am sure that Mrs. Borkland’s comments will be discounted as usual by
the pro-Castro bias so generalized in the U.S. media. It is “politically
correct” to offend Cuban Americans.
Mrs. Borkland was one of the 14,048 children who were sent, by their
parents, unaccompanied, to the U.S. between 1960 and 1962 to avoid being
sent to the Soviet Union for indoctrination or being indoctrinated in
the schools in Cuba, all of which had been taken over by the communist
government. Her parents sent Elena at 13 to the U.S. in 1961 with her
two sisters, Beatriz, 15, and Silvia, 11.
This exodus, known as Operation Peter Pan, was the largest exodus of
unaccompanied children in the Western Hemisphere. And is still largely
unknown to the American public thanks to the U.S. media.
The parents in Cuba made that unimaginable sacrifice so that their
children would be free in America. In his 1972 book “Diario de una
Traicion: Cuba 1961” [Diary of a Betrayal: Cuba 1961], Leovigildo Ruiz
says on page 27, “On January 21, 1961, Fidel Castro announced in Cuba
that 1000 pre-teen children of humble workers had been sent by airplanes
to the Soviet Union to finish their elementary and high school.”
So, Cuban parents did the right thing by sending their children abroad
before losing their right to be parents. And Elena M. Borkland is one of
the children raised and educated in the U.S. and appreciates what
freedom is all about and understands that what Andrea Mitchell was
reporting was inaccurate and a disservice to the American people and to
Castro’s millions of victims on both sides of the Florida Straits.
In the recently released book “Embracing America: A Cuban Exile Comes of
Age” by Margaret L. Paris, on sale at Barnes & Noble, is the story of
Elena M. Borkland. Elena’s mother, Dr. Olga C. De la Maza was a poet who
died in 2002. Before her death, Elena edited and translated her poems in
a bilingual book titled “Todo el mar Para mis Sueños/All the Sea for my
Dreams,” which was published in 2001.
I doubt we will hear much about these books, because as usual, the U.S.
media and academia ignore anything revealing about the Castro regime
because it doesn’t fit comfortably with their slant. They are very
careful not to offend the tyrant of Cuba, but have no misgivings about
offending his victims.
The American people have to wake up to this reality of the mainstream
media in America. Their main goals are profit and the imposition of
their political left-leaning agenda that contradicts what the Founding
Fathers dreamed and sacrificed for America.
It is an alarming reality. That is why we have to find alternative
sources of news: The mainstream media cannot be relied upon for balanced
reporting.
© 2003 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA
COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation
COVERING CUBA 3: Elian (available in VHS & DVD)
Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and
translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell
THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra
IMPORTANT NOTICE: COVERING CUBA 3: Elian will be shown on Thursday, Feb.
20, at 7:00 p.m. at the Roxy Performing Arts Center, 1645 SW 107th
Avenue in Miami. The compelling story of Elian Gonzalez from the
Cuban-American point of view, in English with no subtitles. Running time
approximately 63 minutes. Ana Margarita Martinez and Enrique Pollack
will host this event.
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Augustin Blazquez is a documentary film
producer.
For a preview and information on the
documentary and books
click here:
ABIP
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