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Published on Monday, July 13, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
US Press Falsely Claims Honduran Plurality for Coup
Did a CID-Gallup poll last week indicate that a plurality of Hondurans
support the military coup against democratically elected President
Zelaya? Yes, according to the Washington Post [July
9], the Wall Street Journal [July
10], the Christian Science Monitor [July
11], and Reuters [July
9], which all reported that the poll showed 41% in favor of the
coup, with only 28% opposed.
But in fact the poll showed that 46% - a plurality - were *opposed* to the coup, according to the New York Times[July 10], the Associated Press [July 11] - and the president of CID-Gallup, in an interview with Voice of America on July 9.
As of this writing - Sunday evening, 5:30 pm Eastern time - none of the outlets which reported the poll incorrectly had corrected their earlier, inaccurate, reports.
In reporting the poll incorrectly, the Post, the Journal, the Monitor, and Reuters gave the impression that more Hondurans supported the coup than opposed it, suggesting that this meant trouble for the international coalition pressing for the restoration of President Zelaya - which includes Costa Rican President Arias and Organization of American States Secretary-General Insulza, as well as the Obama Administration.
Of course, even if a poll had showed a plurality in favor of the coup, that would not legitimize the coup. But the opinion of the population, even if difficult to discern in the repression following the coup, is without question a key fact in understanding the situation. To misreport such a key fact is to substantially misinform. To fail to correct such a mistake compounds the error.
The incorrect report of the poll appears to have originated in the Honduran La Prensa. But the U.S. press should have checked before simply repeating what was in La Prensa, particularly on such an important fact, particularly because the result was counterintuitive.
But perhaps the result was not counterintuitive for these press outlets, and that may suggest a deeper problem - the U.S. press is out of touch with the majority of the population in Honduras, and therefore credulous to results which misreport Honduran public opinion as being much more similar than it is to the opinions of Honduran elites.
To ask for corrections, you can contact the Washington Post here; the Christian Science Monitor here ; and the Wall Street Journal here.
But in fact the poll showed that 46% - a plurality - were *opposed* to the coup, according to the New York Times[July 10], the Associated Press [July 11] - and the president of CID-Gallup, in an interview with Voice of America on July 9.
As of this writing - Sunday evening, 5:30 pm Eastern time - none of the outlets which reported the poll incorrectly had corrected their earlier, inaccurate, reports.
In reporting the poll incorrectly, the Post, the Journal, the Monitor, and Reuters gave the impression that more Hondurans supported the coup than opposed it, suggesting that this meant trouble for the international coalition pressing for the restoration of President Zelaya - which includes Costa Rican President Arias and Organization of American States Secretary-General Insulza, as well as the Obama Administration.
Of course, even if a poll had showed a plurality in favor of the coup, that would not legitimize the coup. But the opinion of the population, even if difficult to discern in the repression following the coup, is without question a key fact in understanding the situation. To misreport such a key fact is to substantially misinform. To fail to correct such a mistake compounds the error.
The incorrect report of the poll appears to have originated in the Honduran La Prensa. But the U.S. press should have checked before simply repeating what was in La Prensa, particularly on such an important fact, particularly because the result was counterintuitive.
But perhaps the result was not counterintuitive for these press outlets, and that may suggest a deeper problem - the U.S. press is out of touch with the majority of the population in Honduras, and therefore credulous to results which misreport Honduran public opinion as being much more similar than it is to the opinions of Honduran elites.
To ask for corrections, you can contact the Washington Post here; the Christian Science Monitor here ; and the Wall Street Journal here.
Comments are closed
20 Comments so far
Show AllThe US press may be out of touch with the population of Honduras, but more importantly, it is owned by the same corporate interests that want to see this coup succeed and ensure that Zelaya's reforms do not take. I doubt that this was an error. They just hoped that no one would notice.
...no one would believe the US press anymore anyway.
"...no one would believe the US press anymore anyway."
...
Well, the Economist - British - reports that Zelaya was legitimately removed from office for committing the high crime of "organis(ing) a referendum on convening a constituent assembly."
...
Sounds very underhanded of him. Constituent Assemblies should never be convened based on a popular mandate. Right? Constitutions should always be written by lawyers in backrooms.
Yes, the Economist too often economises on the truth.
from the aticle:
"But perhaps the result was not counterintuitive for these press outlets, and that may suggest a deeper problem - the U.S. press is out of touch with the majority of the population in Honduras, and therefore credulous to results which misreport Honduran public opinion as being much more similar than it is to the opinions of Honduran elites."
hey that's the same way it is in the united states
msm just doing their job - misinform and lie
another day at the office
Typical.
Just like the polls that predicted the incumbent president of Iran would receive 63-65% of the votes were not published in the US. They were in Latin America, however, so there was zero surprise and no fabricated outrage by those of us who live there when the election results turned out to be congruent with the polls.
Lying has always been the easy way to "convince" ignorant people. Goebbels was no dummy.
Yes, he was Dr Goebbels, wasn't he?
So whats the difference between Chavez and Zelaya?
Well Chavez is Venezuela's head of state, whilst Zelaya is Honduras's head of state.
Chavez got his country back.
You don't have to read much of what's on the La Prensa website, or any of the other commercial news sources in Honduras, to decide what their biases are. I wrote this a week ago:
"The pro-coup paper La Prensa reported on its front page that Tegucigalpa has been suddenly invaded by foreign terrorists, most of them Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Cubans, bent on destroying the country’s institutions and sowing chaos. They have supposedly bombed several government buildings within the past week."
(http://theragblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Honduras)
I guess that story was too improbable even for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, et al, to relay to their readers.
Rober Naiman stated ".....U.S. press is out of touch with the majority of the population in Honduras, and therefore credulous to results which misreport Honduran public opinion as being much more similar than it is to the opinions of Honduran elites..."
Out of touch?.This is a typical old boldfaced lie and other tricks of the trade. The press is not as stupid as they often pretend to be. Those who think the press is simply misinformed are indeed the perpetual dupes, always learning yet not coming to the all so obvious truth.
Die MSM!
The corporate media is following the lead of the Obama maladministration, which has effectively praised the coup with faint damns.
There has been some discussion regarding whether the US-- specifically, the CIA-- engineered the coup. So far, there's no evidence of so direct a cause-and-effect.
But the US public response has been to, yes, informally tut-tut the transfer of power as a "coup". And suspend some military aid, I believe.
But whether this is a "community organizer" approach projected onto foreign policy, or some ad hoc pragmatism, the US has recommended dialogue and negotiation between the exiled government and the usurpers in a manner which disingenuously accords parity to the rebels and creates a de facto even-handedness.
The US does not discourage the meme that this is perhaps only a quasi-coup, a de minimis coup in which both sides have their merits.
Perhaps this approach is being taken to create the illusion that this time around, the US isn't going to intervene and dictate terms to the parties-- rather, it's going to recognize the conflict and offer therapeutic support to all sides with the goal of resolving it internally.
In other words, a demonstration of "enlightened" foreign policy; it will be interesting to see how the corporate media infotainwhores continue to spin it.
But the US claw is on the coupsters' side of the scale.
· Yr Obd't Servant
This was no CIA coup. But I was mistaken in saying last week that it was legal. Reading the Constitution, it allows for exactly what they did up to the time they threw him on an airplane. That was when he was denied due process under their law.
He is crooked no doubt and certainly should not be allowed another term, but they gave him a weapon to use against them by that denial of due process.
Not the first time fo me to be mistaken, nor the last I'd bet. But I do listen.
Hey, mistaken's my middle name, but how do we know this is not a CIA coup? True, neither 0 nor Clinton have given the cheerful public support that the US traditionally gives goons. But then, what's the good of having undercover operations if you cannot deny them?
The idea of a coup in Honduras without US knowledge and consent raises some difficult logistical questions. Obviously, the coupsters needed and had the consent of people in the Honduran government, military, and media who had worked closely with the CIA. Anyone planning a coup in any Latin American country with an even vaguely left-sympathetic chief exec would tend to assume support from the US unless he had specific information to the contrary.
It's a little unclear how they would go about getting information to the contrary without hinting around that a coup might take place - not something one wants to do without some impression of support.
If support were denied by the CIA and the US, doesn't it seem a bit risky to go ahead with the coup?
It seems to me that the vanilla answer is that 0 and his State Dept favor the coup but don't want to show their cards to Chavez or, likely more critically, to an electorate now fairly angry about US interventions abroad.
Liar.
CIA coup, or CIA's involved in this coup in Honduras? Very possibly not, but possibly so; maybe. However, CIA ops have also been very replaced with the NED, US State Dept-affiliated NED, for quite a number of years now, after the CIA drew too much public attention and was exposed for MANY of its extremely criminal, diabolically criminal actions around the world. And the NED has been very active across the whole planet for quite a number of years now.
It, for deception, is called National Endowment for [Democracy], but it [is] anti-democracy, just as the U.S. corporate oligarchy, corporatocracy, is, and the CIA works for this CO, just as the economic hit men (EHM) that John Perkins has plentifully written and provides presentations about do. The EHM and the NED definitely work for the corporate oligarchy, and the CIA operatives, when they're used, which I guess they may still be when national leaders strategically are to be overthrown or assassinated, for the CIA to go in and organise the "work" to be carried out by whatever "jackals" (see John Perkins on what "jackals" are) will be employed; well, perhaps the CIA operatives are still used. Given that this coup in Honduras was carried out by the military there, though, they clearly didn't have any need of "jackals" and the CIA may not be involved, at all, one way or another.
So what about the NED? It's "all over the place", in many countries, trying to screw up or corrupt governments, or trying to get corrupt governments in place, for the corporate oligarchy in the USA to strategically increase its gains in terms of other countries' resources. They wanted to in Uzbekistan, and the NED had operated there, but the President of the country eventually booted the US out. Even if the country doesn't have resources of its own that the corporate oligarchy of the USA would greedily want to have their hands firmly on, and I'm not sure that it does, but let's assume that it doesn't. Well, the country is due to be used for one or more oil and/or gas pipelines for shipping oil to, f.e., China.
That's wherein the crisis last week in Xinjiang province of China may also be targeted by the corporate oligarchy of the USA. It's not that they'd want the resources of that province, which apparently does have oil, but the following article explains that the province is to be used for pipelines that'll pipe oil and gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (through Uzbekistan) to China. The sole route for this to enter China is this province. And the NED has been operating very, very strongly with people of that province; people acting pro-US, which is to act pro-US corporate oligarchy, .....
"Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China",
by F. William Engdahl, July 11, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14327
That's a very important article only for the topic of the crisis in Xinjiang province, but it can certainly serve for reflection on what the possibilities may really be about what's behind the coup in Honduras, besides the corporate oligarchs in that country. They most certainly associate, say, with oligarchy in the US.
Is the NED in Honduras? If not, then has it been? If so, then how long ago did the NED cease its "work" there, and how can we be sure that it did?
In any case, even if the NED and CIA were not involved, at all, this doesn't mean that there aren't rich "elites" in the US who aren't pleased with the coup. After all, the coup leaders are right-wing, ..., pro-oligarch, and they'll deal with US oligarchs, once the coup is stabilised enough that they can get on with avaricial business. And the rich "elite" in the US have a lot of influence with US politicians without needing any help from the NED and CIA. After all, the NED and CIA, the operatives branch, work for the corporate oligarchs; not the other way around.
Obama may say some "nice" sounding things, but he hasn't really opposed the coup. After all, he hasn't pulled out the U.S. military and other official personnel from that country, which, I believe, is an indication that he doesn't intend to take a firm stand and one according to US law, which, from what I've read, requires that he pull the US military and other US government people out of Honduras.
Obama has said "nice" sounding words many enough times already, and they're always [empty].
Two points.
1. It is pretty impressive that the MSM now publishes deliberately reversed poll results, then refuse to correct it if it goes against elite interests.
2. Increasingly, the CIA isn't needed for these operations. Commercial firms are available to do the covert action work. Amy Goodman reported this morning that the Honduran golpistas retained the services of a number former Clinton administration officials who work for K-Street PR firms. These firms created the necessary misinformation formerly done by the likes of Kermit Roosevelt, and make a tidy profit too.
In additon to all the comments above, it is important to note that the military who led the coup were trained by the US at the notorious School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Ga which has been involved in coups, massacres, disappearances in most of the Latin American countries since its inception in 1948 in Panama to fight "communism". When are we going to close this school which trains Latin American soldiers to go against their own people, and are backed by the elite or possibly by US corporations like they were in the '80s.?