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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 26, 1982
PAGE 16
Skepticism in what the U.S. government claims is occurring in Central
America typifies the attitude of the press. Not a few newsmen seemed dis
turbed a few days ago to have to publish the facts (via aerial photographs)
of a heavy Soviet-supplied military buildup in Nicaragua. Others smirked
in print over the embarrassment caused the U.S. State Department over the
recently captured Nicaraguan who changed his story in a televised inter
view.
The policy of the press now is to "balance" a statement from the qovernment
with what Salvadoran rebel leaders have to say on the subject. Peter Boyer
writes in the March 25, 1982 LOS ANGELES TIMES:
The fact that there are two sides in the television view of the El
Salvador conflict underscores the profound effect of Vietnam upon
American journalism, according to William Adams, associate
professor of public administration at George Washington Univer
sity [who says]: "It's interesting that journalism thinks of the
United States government and leftist guerrillas as being 'both
Side S •
I H
"Th� fact that these guerrillas� given equal credibility with
the U.S. Secretary of State is! remarkable thing. Can you imag
ine 20 years ago, in the Berlin crisis, American journalists say
ing, 'All right, that's what the President has to say, now let's
get the view from the other side of the wall'?"
Syndicated columnist Patrick J. Buchanan recently wrote about the media's
attitude toward the Vietnam conflict and its similar approach to today's
wars in Central America. In his February 7, 1982 column (appearing in the
SAN DIEGO UNION and elsewhere) Buchanan comments on a recent report in the
British magazine ENCOUNTER written by Robert Elegant, the highly distin
guished foreign correspondent who formerly worked for the LOS ANGELES
TIMES. Here are excerpts of Buchanan's column, in which he, in turn, selec
tively quotes Elegant:
Stated bluntly, the charge [by Elegant ] is that the American
media in this country were "instinctively 'agin the government'-
and at least reflexively, for Saigon's enemies."
"Never before Vietnam," writes the accuser, "had the collective
policy of the media--no less stringent term will serve--sought by
graphic and unremitting distortion the victory of the enemies of
the correspondent's own side."
Perhaps it is time to stop mincing words. What Elegant is saying
is that, if Vietnam had been! declared war, many of his col
leagues could have been classified as traitors. His article in
the August, 1981 issue of the British magazine ENCOUNTER de
scribes the years 1967-1975:
"During the latter half of the 15-year American involvement in
Vietnam, the media became the primary battlefield.
Illusory
events reported by the press as we11 as real events within the
press corps were more decisive than the clash of arms or the con
tention of ideologies. For the first time in modern history, the