Bill Cosby
11-09-2009, 05:10 PM
Paid Lying: What Passes for Major Media Journalism
by Stephen Lendman
Monday, 9 November 2009
Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lies about or suppresses uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.
As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls "junk food news," and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the "propaganda model" that controls the public message by "filter(ing)" disturbing truths, "leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print" or air.
Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 - 1995) called "prostitutes of the press."
As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly. America is always called "beautiful." Beneficial social change is considered heresy. The market works best, we're told, so let it, and patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping till we drop.
The New York Times - Its Lead Role in Distorting and Suppressing Truth
For many decades, The Times has been the closest thing in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda masquerading as real news, commentary and analysis.
Its unmatched clout once got media critic Norman Solomon to call its front page "the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA;" most everywhere, in fact, because its reports are widely circulated and followed globally.
The Paper of Record has a long history of:
· supporting the powerful;
· backing corporate interests;
· endorsing imperial wars;
· supporting CIA efforts to topple elected governments, assassinate independent leaders, prop up friendly dictators, secretly fund and train paramilitary death squads, practice sophisticated forms of torture, and menace democratic freedoms at home and abroad. For decades, in fact, some Times' foreign correspondents were covert Agency assets. Others today likely are as well as other prominent fourth estate members.
The Times management is also comfortable with:
· Washington and corporate lawlessness;
· an unprecedented and growing wealth gap;
· Wall Street banksters looting the federal treasury;
· a private banking cartel controlling the nation's money;
· unmet human needs and increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair for growing millions in a nation run by rogue politicians who don't give a damn as long as they're re-elected;
· a de facto one-party state;
· deep corruption at the highest government and corporate levels;
· democracy for the select few alone;
· sham elections; and
· a deepening social decay symptomatic of a declining state, yet The Times management won't use its clout to expose and help reverse it.
Of course, the same applies throughout the corporate media, the only variance being audience size, the ability to influence it, and the special impact of TV news and talk radio to arouse their faithful. Plus their power of round-the-clock persuasive repetition.
Examples of Journalism, New York Times Style
After a Washington staged February 29, 2004 middle-of-the-night coup ousted democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The Times March 1 editorial lied by:
· stating he resigned;
· saying sending in Marines to abduct him "was the right thing to do;"
· claiming they only came after "Mr. Aristide yielded power;"
· blaming him for "contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule....;" and
· accusing him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not "deliver(ing) the democracy he promised."
In fact, he's a beloved democrat first elected in 1990 with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn't succeed himself in 1996, ran in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers, under orders from Washington, won't let him.
Following Hugo Chavez's December 1998 election, The Times Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:
Regional "presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)" taking power.
Ever since, Times writers consistently:
· turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;
· bashed Chavez as "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;"
· said he "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy, and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions:" common conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein falsely said exist now in:
o calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation's oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and
o denouncing his making foreign investors pay their fair share.
Lowenstein backed the aborted April 2002 coup by calling Chavez's ouster a "resignation," then saying Venezuela "no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator."
Post-/911, the Times played the lead role in taking the nation to war by highlighting the "day of terror" and saying the "President Vows to Exact Punishment for 'Evil.' "
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller was a weapon of mass deception with her daily front page Pentagon press release columns masquerading as real news, later exposed as manipulative lies, but they worked.
Following the September 15, 2009 Goldstone Commission report, a same day Neil MacFarquhar column suggested that Israel's "disproportionate attack" followed Hamas provocations, so perhaps it was justified. While The Times gave Judge Goldstone op-ed space, it:
published scathing letters denouncing his "one-sidedness" and a September 18 piece saying "the Obama administration said (today) that a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza was unfair to Israel and did not take adequate account of 'deplorable' actions by the militant group Hamas in the conflict last winter."
The paper then imposed a near-blackout on its news and editorial pages to bury the story and kill it through silence - never mind its importance in documenting clear evidence of Israeli war crimes against a civilian population.
National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting (PBS)
Founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an alternative to commercial broadcasters by "promot(ing) personal growth rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects."
Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable from the rest of the corporate media, just as corrupted, and consider its former head, Kevin Klose.
He was president from December 1998 - September 2008 and CEO from 1998 - January 2009. Earlier he was US propaganda director as head of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television, and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti, so he fit easily into his new role.
On January 5, 2009, Vivian Schiller succeeded him as president and CEO. Her official bio says she was previously with "The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com."
She'll oversee "all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization's critical partnerships with our 800+ member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week." Most don't know they're getting the same corporate propaganda and "junk food news" or that
NPR calls itself "public" to conceal its real agenda, and why critics call it "National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio" with good reason.
Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls itself "a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress...and is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100 locally-owned and-operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services."
Like NPR, it's heavily corporate and government funded and provides similar services for them. Under George Bush, former Voice of America director Kenneth Tomlinson was chairman of CPB's Board of Governors until an internal 2005 investigation forced him out for repeatedly braking the law.
On September 16, 2009, a CPB press release announced that "The board of directors (of the CPB) today elected Dr. Ernest Wilson III (as) chairman and re-elected....CEO Beth Courtney (as) vice-chair."
Wilson previously held senior policy positions as Director of International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council. He was also Policy and Planning Unit Director for the US Information Agency and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Beth Courtney is a George Bush appointee, a past chairman of the board of America's Public Television Stations and present CPB vice chairman. Currently she also serves on the boards of Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives, the National Forum for Public Television Executives, and the National Educational Telecommunications Association along with other appropriate credentials for her re-appointment.
In its May/June 2004 "Extra" report, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) asked "How Public Is Public Radio? Writers Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth quoted past head Kevin Klose saying:
"All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country."
Not according to FAIR on "every on-air source quoted in June 2003 on four of (NPR's) news shows: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday." Each guest was classified "by occupation, gender, nationality, and partisan affiliation." Combined, 2,334 sources from 804 stories were quoted.
FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time.
Spokespeople for public interest groups accounted for 7% of total sources, and ordinary people appeared mostly in "one-sentence soundbites."
Male guests outnumbered women about 4:1, and those quoted most often came from the same elite categories as men.
Overall, NPR represents the same dominant interests as the major commercial media - conservative, pro-business, pro-war, pro-Israel, and very much against the public interest while pretending to support it.
FAIR analyzed PBS's flagship NewsHour guest list and drew similar conclusions. Like NPR, it's ideologically right and usually censors progressive content and public interest programming. In a 1990 NewsHour evaluation, FAIR compared its content to ABC's Nightline and found that it presented "an even narrower segment of the political spectrum." It then conducted an October 2005 - March 2006 analysis of all of its programs, got similar results, and determined that NewHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.
FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content "overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public" they're obliged to serve.
FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content "overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public" they're obliged to serve. While masquerading as public programming, they betray their listeners and viewers by offering the same propaganda and "junk food news" as the dominant corporate media. Considering their funding sources, what else would they do.
An October 6 NPR story is typical of most others. It charged Hugo Chavez with "Targeting Opponents For Arrest." Reporter Juan Forero claimed "dozens of university students" went on hunger strike outside OAS headquarters in Caracas on September 28 along with others "across the country....in support of Julio Cesar Rivas, a student who was arrested during an anti-government demonstration in August...."
Rivas is the coordinator and founder of Juventud Activa de Venezuela Unida (United Active Youth of Venezuela - JAVU). Earlier, he was part of a staged, violent street protest against Venezuela's new Education Law. The government says JAVU acts as "shock troops" in opposition protests and is liberally funded by the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency or International Development (USAID) to disrupt internal Venezuelan affairs. It's a familiar scheme, repeated numerous times in the past, to discredit and disrupt the Chavez government in hopes of eventually ousting it.
JAVU has about 80,000 members in most Venezuelan states, and its blog site calls for bringing down the government and supporting the Honduran military coup.
Rivas was released on September 29, but must appear for trial. He's a Washington-funded provocateur, charged with resisting arrest, instigating crime, conspiracy, inciting rebellion, damaging public property, and using "generic" weapons.
While in custody, Venezuela Public Defender Gabriela Ramirez assured him in person that his full constitutional rights will be protected. Street protests still continue and have been countered by pro-Chavez ones calling for "peace and tolerance." According to the Federation of Bolivarian students' Carlos Sierra:
Opposition "students are being used and manipulated by the top leadership of the irrational opposition, which, via the (dominant) media, send them to generate violence and terrorism in the country" much like on previous occasions.
But according to NPR's Forero, Rivas was "sent to one of Venezuela's most infamous prisons" where other government opponents are held as political prisoners. Chavez "has been jailing dozens of key opponents - some of them students, some of them veteran politicians" in citing unnamed "human rights groups and constitutional experts (claiming) Venezuela is increasingly singling out and imprisoning its foes in politically motivated witch hunts."
Forero didn't mention that Rivas fomented violence. Others arrested also broke the law. No one is a political prisoner, and all Venezuelans get fair and equitable trials, unlike in America where real political arrests, prosecutions and convictions happen regularly against innocent targeted victims - a topic NPR and PBS won't touch except to vilify them publicly on-air.
Nor do they report truthfully on Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2009, on NPR's Morning Edition, reporter Renee Montagne practically extolled Israeli racism in stating:
"There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, (so) vigilantes have banded together to fight it." She means from "Jewish settlements" that "have sprung up (in) traditionally Arab" East Jerusalem, but won't admit they're on stolen Palestinian land.
NPR's Sheera Frankel joined a patrol, implied Arabs are inferior to Jews, and suggested they pose a danger to Jewish women and girls. She described vigilantes on the lookout for "Arab-Jewish couples (to) break up their dates," suggesting it's the right thing to do, but never questioning the legitimacy of settlements, vigilante violence in East Jerusalem, its lawless disregard for the law, or great harm to innocent people. Instead she called "mixed couples a growing epidemic" of miscegenation - typical of NPR's racism and one-sided support for Israel.
by Stephen Lendman
Monday, 9 November 2009
Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lies about or suppresses uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.
As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls "junk food news," and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the "propaganda model" that controls the public message by "filter(ing)" disturbing truths, "leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print" or air.
Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 - 1995) called "prostitutes of the press."
As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly. America is always called "beautiful." Beneficial social change is considered heresy. The market works best, we're told, so let it, and patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping till we drop.
The New York Times - Its Lead Role in Distorting and Suppressing Truth
For many decades, The Times has been the closest thing in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda masquerading as real news, commentary and analysis.
Its unmatched clout once got media critic Norman Solomon to call its front page "the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA;" most everywhere, in fact, because its reports are widely circulated and followed globally.
The Paper of Record has a long history of:
· supporting the powerful;
· backing corporate interests;
· endorsing imperial wars;
· supporting CIA efforts to topple elected governments, assassinate independent leaders, prop up friendly dictators, secretly fund and train paramilitary death squads, practice sophisticated forms of torture, and menace democratic freedoms at home and abroad. For decades, in fact, some Times' foreign correspondents were covert Agency assets. Others today likely are as well as other prominent fourth estate members.
The Times management is also comfortable with:
· Washington and corporate lawlessness;
· an unprecedented and growing wealth gap;
· Wall Street banksters looting the federal treasury;
· a private banking cartel controlling the nation's money;
· unmet human needs and increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair for growing millions in a nation run by rogue politicians who don't give a damn as long as they're re-elected;
· a de facto one-party state;
· deep corruption at the highest government and corporate levels;
· democracy for the select few alone;
· sham elections; and
· a deepening social decay symptomatic of a declining state, yet The Times management won't use its clout to expose and help reverse it.
Of course, the same applies throughout the corporate media, the only variance being audience size, the ability to influence it, and the special impact of TV news and talk radio to arouse their faithful. Plus their power of round-the-clock persuasive repetition.
Examples of Journalism, New York Times Style
After a Washington staged February 29, 2004 middle-of-the-night coup ousted democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The Times March 1 editorial lied by:
· stating he resigned;
· saying sending in Marines to abduct him "was the right thing to do;"
· claiming they only came after "Mr. Aristide yielded power;"
· blaming him for "contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule....;" and
· accusing him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not "deliver(ing) the democracy he promised."
In fact, he's a beloved democrat first elected in 1990 with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn't succeed himself in 1996, ran in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers, under orders from Washington, won't let him.
Following Hugo Chavez's December 1998 election, The Times Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:
Regional "presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)" taking power.
Ever since, Times writers consistently:
· turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;
· bashed Chavez as "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;"
· said he "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy, and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions:" common conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein falsely said exist now in:
o calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation's oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and
o denouncing his making foreign investors pay their fair share.
Lowenstein backed the aborted April 2002 coup by calling Chavez's ouster a "resignation," then saying Venezuela "no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator."
Post-/911, the Times played the lead role in taking the nation to war by highlighting the "day of terror" and saying the "President Vows to Exact Punishment for 'Evil.' "
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller was a weapon of mass deception with her daily front page Pentagon press release columns masquerading as real news, later exposed as manipulative lies, but they worked.
Following the September 15, 2009 Goldstone Commission report, a same day Neil MacFarquhar column suggested that Israel's "disproportionate attack" followed Hamas provocations, so perhaps it was justified. While The Times gave Judge Goldstone op-ed space, it:
published scathing letters denouncing his "one-sidedness" and a September 18 piece saying "the Obama administration said (today) that a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza was unfair to Israel and did not take adequate account of 'deplorable' actions by the militant group Hamas in the conflict last winter."
The paper then imposed a near-blackout on its news and editorial pages to bury the story and kill it through silence - never mind its importance in documenting clear evidence of Israeli war crimes against a civilian population.
National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting (PBS)
Founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an alternative to commercial broadcasters by "promot(ing) personal growth rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects."
Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable from the rest of the corporate media, just as corrupted, and consider its former head, Kevin Klose.
He was president from December 1998 - September 2008 and CEO from 1998 - January 2009. Earlier he was US propaganda director as head of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television, and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti, so he fit easily into his new role.
On January 5, 2009, Vivian Schiller succeeded him as president and CEO. Her official bio says she was previously with "The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com."
She'll oversee "all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization's critical partnerships with our 800+ member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week." Most don't know they're getting the same corporate propaganda and "junk food news" or that
NPR calls itself "public" to conceal its real agenda, and why critics call it "National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio" with good reason.
Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls itself "a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress...and is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100 locally-owned and-operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services."
Like NPR, it's heavily corporate and government funded and provides similar services for them. Under George Bush, former Voice of America director Kenneth Tomlinson was chairman of CPB's Board of Governors until an internal 2005 investigation forced him out for repeatedly braking the law.
On September 16, 2009, a CPB press release announced that "The board of directors (of the CPB) today elected Dr. Ernest Wilson III (as) chairman and re-elected....CEO Beth Courtney (as) vice-chair."
Wilson previously held senior policy positions as Director of International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council. He was also Policy and Planning Unit Director for the US Information Agency and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Beth Courtney is a George Bush appointee, a past chairman of the board of America's Public Television Stations and present CPB vice chairman. Currently she also serves on the boards of Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives, the National Forum for Public Television Executives, and the National Educational Telecommunications Association along with other appropriate credentials for her re-appointment.
In its May/June 2004 "Extra" report, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) asked "How Public Is Public Radio? Writers Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth quoted past head Kevin Klose saying:
"All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country."
Not according to FAIR on "every on-air source quoted in June 2003 on four of (NPR's) news shows: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday." Each guest was classified "by occupation, gender, nationality, and partisan affiliation." Combined, 2,334 sources from 804 stories were quoted.
FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time.
Spokespeople for public interest groups accounted for 7% of total sources, and ordinary people appeared mostly in "one-sentence soundbites."
Male guests outnumbered women about 4:1, and those quoted most often came from the same elite categories as men.
Overall, NPR represents the same dominant interests as the major commercial media - conservative, pro-business, pro-war, pro-Israel, and very much against the public interest while pretending to support it.
FAIR analyzed PBS's flagship NewsHour guest list and drew similar conclusions. Like NPR, it's ideologically right and usually censors progressive content and public interest programming. In a 1990 NewsHour evaluation, FAIR compared its content to ABC's Nightline and found that it presented "an even narrower segment of the political spectrum." It then conducted an October 2005 - March 2006 analysis of all of its programs, got similar results, and determined that NewHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.
FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content "overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public" they're obliged to serve.
FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content "overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public" they're obliged to serve. While masquerading as public programming, they betray their listeners and viewers by offering the same propaganda and "junk food news" as the dominant corporate media. Considering their funding sources, what else would they do.
An October 6 NPR story is typical of most others. It charged Hugo Chavez with "Targeting Opponents For Arrest." Reporter Juan Forero claimed "dozens of university students" went on hunger strike outside OAS headquarters in Caracas on September 28 along with others "across the country....in support of Julio Cesar Rivas, a student who was arrested during an anti-government demonstration in August...."
Rivas is the coordinator and founder of Juventud Activa de Venezuela Unida (United Active Youth of Venezuela - JAVU). Earlier, he was part of a staged, violent street protest against Venezuela's new Education Law. The government says JAVU acts as "shock troops" in opposition protests and is liberally funded by the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency or International Development (USAID) to disrupt internal Venezuelan affairs. It's a familiar scheme, repeated numerous times in the past, to discredit and disrupt the Chavez government in hopes of eventually ousting it.
JAVU has about 80,000 members in most Venezuelan states, and its blog site calls for bringing down the government and supporting the Honduran military coup.
Rivas was released on September 29, but must appear for trial. He's a Washington-funded provocateur, charged with resisting arrest, instigating crime, conspiracy, inciting rebellion, damaging public property, and using "generic" weapons.
While in custody, Venezuela Public Defender Gabriela Ramirez assured him in person that his full constitutional rights will be protected. Street protests still continue and have been countered by pro-Chavez ones calling for "peace and tolerance." According to the Federation of Bolivarian students' Carlos Sierra:
Opposition "students are being used and manipulated by the top leadership of the irrational opposition, which, via the (dominant) media, send them to generate violence and terrorism in the country" much like on previous occasions.
But according to NPR's Forero, Rivas was "sent to one of Venezuela's most infamous prisons" where other government opponents are held as political prisoners. Chavez "has been jailing dozens of key opponents - some of them students, some of them veteran politicians" in citing unnamed "human rights groups and constitutional experts (claiming) Venezuela is increasingly singling out and imprisoning its foes in politically motivated witch hunts."
Forero didn't mention that Rivas fomented violence. Others arrested also broke the law. No one is a political prisoner, and all Venezuelans get fair and equitable trials, unlike in America where real political arrests, prosecutions and convictions happen regularly against innocent targeted victims - a topic NPR and PBS won't touch except to vilify them publicly on-air.
Nor do they report truthfully on Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2009, on NPR's Morning Edition, reporter Renee Montagne practically extolled Israeli racism in stating:
"There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, (so) vigilantes have banded together to fight it." She means from "Jewish settlements" that "have sprung up (in) traditionally Arab" East Jerusalem, but won't admit they're on stolen Palestinian land.
NPR's Sheera Frankel joined a patrol, implied Arabs are inferior to Jews, and suggested they pose a danger to Jewish women and girls. She described vigilantes on the lookout for "Arab-Jewish couples (to) break up their dates," suggesting it's the right thing to do, but never questioning the legitimacy of settlements, vigilante violence in East Jerusalem, its lawless disregard for the law, or great harm to innocent people. Instead she called "mixed couples a growing epidemic" of miscegenation - typical of NPR's racism and one-sided support for Israel.