08/12/2009
Reporters hit out at 'biased' journalism
Sunday 06 December 2009
Morning Star
Highly respected journalists lambasted foreign correspondents in the British media on Saturday at the Latin America 2009 conference for being heavily shaped by the government's foreign policy and ignoring the progress made in region.
In a seminar on disinformation on Latin America, journalists Richard Gott and Seumus Milne urged the British public to use complaints procedures in the public and non-public media to wear down news outlets and encourage more progressive elements within them to break the silence over the radical changes improving the lives of millions of the continent's peoples.
Explaining that "the story in Latin America doesn't fit the dominant Western media narrative‚" Mr Milne criticised foreign correspondents who live only among elite circles while abroad and follow their political line.
He contrasted the non-coverage of the Honduran elections against the media frenzy over the Iranian elections to highlight how British journalism disproportionately reflects Western neoliberal interests.
Richard Gott relentlessly criticised journalists such as Phil Gunson, Rory Carroll and Andy Webb-Vidal who appear to "use a very narrow range sources" when reporting from Latin America.
In the case of Mr Webb-Vidal, these were "Venezuelan opposition leaders, US based think tanks that share the State Department view that Venezuela is a strategic threat to the region and spokespeople for foreign governments - primarily US officials but also anonymous diplomats who invariably share the same view."
Highlighting the BBC's statutory obligation to be impartial, Mr Milne said the public should use this leverage to force it to "account for itself" when it broadcasts biased and inaccurate news stories.
He added that progressive people within the BBC who are more sympathetic to Latin America need "support from outside to try and win their internal battle."
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/84127