Thursday, July 23, 2009

Honduras? Never Heard of It


It's really quite telling how drastically different NPR's coverage of Iran is from it's non-coverage of the Honduran coup. Do a search on NPR's site of Honduras coup and see what's been offered on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and the two Weekend Edition shows in the last week:
  • A July 11th ATC sympathetic piece on coup supporters in Miami (which I critiqued here)
However search Ahmadinejad on NPR's site and see what the past week has featured:
  • July 22 ATC on deepening divisions, demonstrations, and state violence against protesters
  • July 21 ME on challenges to the election from former leaders
I don't have any complaint with NPR giving coverage to events in Iran, but the non-coverage of Honduras is stunning. After all, this past week has been very eventful in Honduras with ousted President Zelaya accepting a mediated solution only to have the coup government reject it.

NPR's non-coverage ignores Zelaya's compromise and is helpful in covering up the supportive role that the US military is continuing to offer the Honduran military in spite of official US denunciation of the coup. It also allows NPR to ignore the increasing repression of the coup government and the role of graduates from the US School of Coups in the overthrow of the Honduran president.

4 comments:

geoff said...

Nicaragua has pulled off a major land grab there!

So NPR hasn't sent Agent Forero to fill his sombrero with tears for the bad press being given the righteous and highly educated (two time graduate of the SOA) civilian champion for the "rule of law" Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez?

Porter Melmoth said...

Anything south of Mexico is still going to receive Imperial treatment (e.g. Banana Status) from the US media. That is, unless you're a Chavez or an Ortega or a Morales. But then you'd receive REAL Imperial status: as in 'should be conquered'.

(I love the map - imagine if all of Central America - plus Mexico, Texas, and the American Southwest was labeled 'Nicaragua'...!)

(Remember British Honduras? Now Belize. Wherever the hell THAT is... Let's ask John Forero...)

Porter Melmoth said...

Hey Gope, sorry for the duplication, but we were typing at the same time, with similar thoughts!

Anonymous said...

I had to go elsewhere to find out that US law and treaty states that any government that is a victim of a coup can not recieve any trade from US. How soon do you think that will kick in?

edk