When it comes to reporting on the nefarious goings-on throughout the world, the mainstream media can be quite selective.
When the perpetrators are individuals or groups who they deem to be less than agreeable, the media will leave no stone unturned in their quest to expose those behind the injustice. However, when someone with whom they share an ideological point of view commits the wicked act, they become the equivalent of the three wise monkeys from the Japanese maxim — they see no evil, they hear no evil, and in the case of the media, they report no evil.
Last Friday, July 17, the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna published a story detailing the Honduran government’s seizure of 45 government-owned computers found hidden in a building adjacent to the presidential palace formally occupied by the deposed President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya. According to the Honduran authorities these computers contained the results of the referendum Zelaya was fervently trying to push through. When the authorities examined those results, they found that the Honduran people had overwhelmingly voted in favor of having a constitutional convention.
This would open the door and allow Zelaya to change the constitution, removing the one-term limit on presidents strictly stipulated by the document. It is similar to what his friend and mentor, Hugo Chavez, did in Venezuela, and Zelaya figured it would work for him, too.
The only problem with these results was that the plebiscite vote never took place.
On the day Zelaya and his supporters were planning to conduct the referendum, he was arrested in the early morning hours and flown to exile in Costa Rica. The voting results found on those computers were all contrived to indicate a predetermined outcome. Considering the extremely volatile situation in Honduras, the news of this alleged fraud, if found to be true, would change the entire dynamic of this crisis. However, all throughout Friday and later into the weekend, even though various Spanish-language news outlets in Nicaragua, Argentina, and Spain had reported on this very significant development, there was no mention of it at all by the English-speaking mainstream media.
The following Saturday morning I posted a story about the breaking news on Babalu Blog, translating a portion of the article published by EuropaPress in Spanish and providing links to the article in La Tribuna and other Spanish sources. By Saturday afternoon several major news blogs were linking to my post, and by Sunday night more news-related blogs had picked up on the story. The news of apparent massive voter fraud perpetrated by Zelaya and his cronies was circling the globe.
Still, the mainstream media remained mum about the discovery and instead published several accounts detailing the progress of talks between the interim Honduran government and mediators in Costa Rica. The AP, Reuters, CNN, BBC News, and even Fox News looked the other way while evidence implicating Zelaya and his supporters in a fraudulent vote was unearthed in Tegucigalpa for all who cared to look. Pictures were provided by the authorities as well as samples of the evidence they uncovered. They even held press conferences to answer questions related to the find.
And yet for some reason, the mainstream media — who have been camped out in Tegucigalpa for weeks now — decided to cover their eyes, their ears, and in effect, cover their mouths to this game-changing revelation.
The truth is that this bombshell discovery was very inconvenient to a mainstream media that had already decided to take the side of the deposed Honduran president. From the beginning of the crisis they used terms such as “military takeover” and “coup d’etat” to describe the events that took place, ignoring the fact that when the Honduran government removed Zelaya from office it was following the rule of law that was plainly spelled out in their democratic constitution. Instead, they chose to echo the same words and terms used by such giants of democracy as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, pursuing a course to establish a perception of the reality in Honduras instead of the actual reality.
If the mainstream media were to report on this story of voter fraud on a colossal scale, they would run the risk of clearing up the waters they had so carefully muddled over the past few weeks and jeopardize the return to power of the corrupt Zelaya. Although this type of behavior by the mainstream media is not surprising to many of us, it is still shocking when they are this blatant and deliberate in their attempt to keep the truth hidden. All the more shocking are the effects such conduct by the mainstream media can have on the Honduran people who only want their leaders to follow the rule of law. Truth, as well as the will and desire of the Honduran people, is trumped by the media’s desire to keep a fraudulent leader who shares their ideological beliefs in power. Perhaps a few dozen, or maybe hundreds or thousands of innocent Hondurans will die in the process, but the mainstream media is seemingly not worried about that prospect.
Fortunately, facts have a nasty habit of lasting forever, and just because the mainstream media chooses to look the other way, or cover their ears, or remain silent, it does not mean these facts will cease to exist. Perceptions come and go, but facts, if you do not deal with them, will eventually deal with you. That is something even Mizaru, Mikazaru, and Mazaru, the three wise monkeys, know.
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