NationStates Jolt Archive

I often read mainstream websites such as CNN, BBC and other internationally recognised publications to keep appraised of what is going on in the world, but from time to time I will find articles that seem to be biased or have an agenda behind them. I was wondering if anyone else finds the following quote to be an attempt to spin recent events in Haiti in order to promote support for an corporate friendly government?

Below is a quote from the article and a link to the CNN website, I have highlighted the part that I believe is misleading.

"Priest Allied to Ex-Haiti President Jailed

By ALFRED DE MONTESQUIOU

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A priest allied to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been arrested in connection with the killing of a prominent journalist, his lawyer said Friday...

...The priest has emerged as a leader of Aristide's Lavalas Family party, which has been accused by the interim government of stoking violence to push for the return of the former president, who was ousted following a bloody rebellion in 2004.

Jean-Juste denied any involvement in the death of Roche, whose body was found in the street five days after he was abducted in the capital in a slaying that the government blamed on armed supporters of Aristide.

More than 700 people have been killed since in Haiti since September. Most of the violence in Haiti is blamed on well-armed street gangs loyal to Aristide. But Aristide supporters allege their members have been the victims of killings and other atrocities at the hands of Haiti's police."
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1102&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20050722%2F2229425561.htm&sc=1102

I'm not going to go to the website and read the whole article yet, as right now I don't feel that's necessary at this point...

However...without actually being there and actually knowing what is really going on (first hand), it is hard to say whether those sentences are biased.

I mean...it doesn't say who is actually doing the killing. It says "group is blamed for the violence, but group claims to be victims."

It's not bias...if I "blamed" you of raping someone, would that make you a rapist? If you claimed to be a victim of rape, is that inherent proof that you were raped? No, in both cases.

What this journalist has done in the quoted material is simply given both sides of the issue. It's my opinion however, that they should not have seperated the sentences...but whatever..

That's not to say, however, that media spin does not exist. I'm just trying to explain that in the quoted material...that's not really spin...

I'm not going to go to the website and read the whole article yet, as right now I don't feel that's necessary at this point...

However...without actually being there and actually knowing what is really going on (first hand), it is hard to say whether those sentences are biased.

I mean...it doesn't say who is actually doing the killing. It says "group is blamed for the violence, but group claims to be victims."

It's not bias...if I "blamed" you of raping someone, would that make you a rapist? If you claimed to be a victim of rape, is that inherent proof that you were raped? No, in both cases.

What this journalist has done in the quoted material is simply given both sides of the issue. It's my opinion however, that they should not have seperated the sentences...but whatever..

The article isn't long, and perhaps reading it will give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. I'm going to edit my post to include the headline.