While reading about the political turmoil in both Iran and Honduras I kept noting how mainstream media covered the two situations so vastly different. Maybe it’s just me; maybe I don’t have enough knowledge of both countries history. Recently I found a Democracy Now interview with John Pilger that I found interesting. The whole interview is worth reading, or watching if you prefer, but here’s a part I wanted to highlight:
From Democracy Now:
John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the Corporate Media, Obama’s Wars, and Resisting the American Empire
“AMY GOODMAN: John, talk about the contrast between the media coverage of the Iranian elections and the Honduran coup and the response to it on the ground.
JOHN PILGER: Well, you know, you take the New York Times. The New York Times basically has said that—in so many words, that the Iranian protests represent a mass movement, embracing the majority in that country. Now, there’s no doubt that among the people protesting, the many people protesting in the streets of Iran, are those who want another Iran, those who want greater freedoms—we’ve heard from them in the past—but without any smoking gun, without any credible information, without any evidence that that election in Iran was rigged, rigged to get rid of something like ten million votes.
I mean, I don’t think anyone doubts that in an election like Iran’s, like an election in the United States, there is fraud. In most elections, there are. And there may well have been extensive fraud in the Iranian election. But the way our perception of those events in Iran has been manipulated is to suggest that this was a great—a revolution that was set to overthrow the Islamic Revolution of 1979. That’s just simply not true. That has preoccupied the mainstream media, has been on the front pages and top of the news on the networks.
Contrast that with Honduras, yes, it has been a news item, but way at the end of Michael Jackson. And we’ve—as a main component of this news item has been the Obama administration’s alleged condemnation of the Honduran coup. But if you look at the condemnation, which is built on the fact that they said that—they’ve said that—well, they tried to sway the Honduran military from staging the coup—and I have to say, Hillary Clinton doesn’t want to call it a coup, because if she called it a coup, the Foreign Assistance Act would kick in, and she’d have to withdraw all the military support to the 600 US military personnel who are based in Honduras. But she said, and administration officials have said, “Look, we tried to persuade the Honduran military from going ahead with this.” Well, turn that around, as that means that they knew that a coup was coming, and it just beggars belief that they didn’t play a major role in the events, that may well have got out of their control. They may well have not wanted the coup in its present form, in its present crude form, to happen, but they knew about it. It so parallels the 2002 coup against Chavez. Now, that story, which it really is, the kernel of that news story, it is really what matters in that news story, did—well, did the US play its traditional role or not? And why has the elected president of Honduras been kicked out of his country? That’s been relegated.
So, you have two news stories. You have the Iranian story of protests for freedom. That’s approved, that’s a worthy story. You have the Honduras story of our friends in the south just getting a little bit out of control. That’s an unworthy story. Two different perceptions in two very, very important areas.”
Posted by Vixen as News at 10:35 PM CDT