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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Death to baby killers, NOW!
Message-ID: <1089@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jan-86 23:28:29 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1089
Posted: Mon Jan 27 23:28:29 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:48:26 EST
References: <Upon> <request> <202@aero.ARPA> <483@whuts.UUCP> <1566@ihlpg.UUCP> <500@whuts.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 34


In article <500@whuts.UUCP> orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
>> Goddamn it, Tim.  You either have a short memory or are deliberately
>> lying.  The killing of Orlando Letelier made big, big news.  Pinochet
>> was portrayed in the news (perhaps accurately) as a monster.  The
>> widespread disappearance of his opponents in Chile was given wide
>> coverage.
> 
>Are you going to tell me, Bill, that the assassination of Orlando Letelier
>was on the headlines and the TV news for weeks?  That is news to me.
>Certainly the initial incident was covered briefly for a day.
>But I got absolutely exhausted at the coverage of the Achille Lauro
>incident for not just a day or days but *weeks* while there was not a
>single report on bombings in El Salvador or contra's murders in Nicaragua.

Was Orlando Letelier assassinated over a period of several weeks?  The
press covers the news as it happens; if it happens over several weeks,
it gets reported ad nauseum.

>Admittedly the killing of Letelier was somewhat different since he
>was an admitted opponent of Pinochet's dictatorship.  But then, how
>about the journalist whose brother "disappeared" in Guatemala and was
>last seen in a military helicopter? His brother has been to the State Dept.
>repeatedly trying to get them to pursue the case to no avail.
>Has this case been in the headlines for weeks? Of course not.
>It was in the back pages of the New York Times once.

I dare say the average disappearance in South America gets more coverage by
the American media than the average disappearance in the Soviet Union.  That
is to say, rarely in South America, and very rarely in the Soviet Union.
If the press reported every person who "disappeared" in any reasonably
large dictatorship, there wouldn't be room for any news.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108