News of the Restless

Oh, boo hoo. Once again, the Inter-American Press OWNERS’* Association has its collective diapers in a bunch:

The Inter American Press Assn. (IAPA) wound up its mid-year meeting in Paraguay on Monday declaring that freedom of the press in the Americas deteriorated over the last six months because of several adverse factors, including “the murders of journalists and violence against them, campaigns to discredit the press and a climate of hostility by some governments toward news media and reporters and as a consequence of the U.S. newspaper industry crisis.”

The statement on the group’s website reports that populist governments in the region followed the lead of “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [and] stepped up their campaigns of abuse and ridicule of news organizations and individual reporters.”

My translation follows:

Waaaaaa! We don’t get to be palangristas** with impunity anymore! We’re being held accountable by a skeptical public***! And they’re voting with their feet and not buying our crap anymore! Help, help, we’re being oppressed!

There. Much better.

In case you’re wondering what they’re screaming about, it seems that the people of Venezuela and Bolivia****, to name just two, are no longer fooled by the palangristas among them. Sure, a Bolivian government spokesperson has spoken out against the IAPOA’s bullshit, but there’s no governmental censorship happening there. Or, for that matter, in Venezuela. What there is, is a loss of influence for opinions fabricated by the endogenous right and the usual suspects in Washington.

To make things even more entertaining, two Venezuelan commercial networks are now at each other’s throats because one has been deemed somewhat more objective than the other. That is, Venevisión = Chicken Noodle Network, Globovisión = FUX Snooze. Of course, Venezuelan FUX Snooze accuses Venezuelan Chicken Noodle Network of “not defending principles”. (“Not defending principles” = practicing a reasonable facsimile of journalism rather than fomenting coups d’état.)

As for the woes of the US papers, those could have been seen from a long way off, if only someone had opened a window and hung their head out for a good look around. When they gobble ad revenues for the owners’ profit rather than getting their income from newsstand sales and subscriptions and spending it on quality reporting, well…my heart bleeds less than you’d think it should. It’s the crapitalist media model, and since it’s built on selling shit and fabricating bogus opinions rather than fully and accurately informing the public, it deserves to be in financial trouble.

Especially if there are palangristas in the mix. Those are invariably Bhad Nhews.

*I stuck that in there, because it belongs there and was left out by some strange oversight. (Yes, I’m being kind. “Some strange oversight” = some disingenuous asshole, most likely.)

**Palangrista = media whore paid by either commercial interests or the CIA (or both!) to put out crapaganda, not report objectively and/or honestly.

***It’s amazing how often they conflate free-but-unfavorable public opinion with oppression by (democratically elected) governments, but they gotta use that old, tired “ZOMG it’s a commie!!!11eleven!!!” meme somewhere.

****Incidentally, Venezuela and Bolivia are two countries in which no journalists, however fascistic or obnoxious, have been killed of late. A few leftist ones have been roughed up by rightards, but no one has died. For that, you’ll have to go to Mexico or Colombia. And if you do, you’ll find a disproportionate number of lefty journos on the lists. It begs the question of why the owners of their respective media outlets haven’t done more to protect them in such a hostile climate, but the IAPOA doesn’t believe in discussing that. They’d much prefer to deflect your attention to imaginary oppression in Venezuela and Bolivia. Guess why.