The following petition, signed by over a dozen experts on Latin America and Media including Noam Chomsky and Greg Grandin, was sent today to Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor for The New York Times. Join the campaign below.

Dear Margaret Sullivan,

In a recent column (4/12/13), you observed:

Although individual words and phrases may not amount to very much in the great flow produced each day, language matters. When news organizations accept the government’s way of speaking, they seem to accept the government’s way of thinking. In The Times, these decisions carry even more weight.

In light of this comment we encourage you to compare The New York Times’s characterization of the leadership of the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and that of Roberto Micheletti and Porfirio Lobo in Honduras.

In the past four years, the Times has referred to Chávez as an “autocrat,” “despot,” “authoritarian ruler” and a “caudillo” in its news coverage. When opinion pieces are included, the Times has published at least fifteen separate articles employing such language, depicting Chávez as a “dictator” or “strongman.” Over the same period—since the June 28, 2009 military overthrow of elected president Manuel Zelaya of Honduras—Times contributors have never used such terms to describe Micheletti, who presided over the coup regime after Zelaya’s removal, or Porfirio Lobo, who succeeded him. Instead, the paper has variously described them in its news coverage as “interim,” “de facto,” and “new.”

Porfirio Lobo assumed the presidency after winning an election held under Micheletti’s coup government. The elections were marked by repression and censorship, and international monitors, like the Carter Center, boycotted them. Since the coup, Honduras’s military and police have routinely killed civilians.

Over the past 14 years Venezuela has had 16 elections or referenda deemed free and fair by leading international authorities. Jimmy Carter praised Venezuela’s elections, among the 92 the Carter Center has monitored, as having “a very wonderful voting system.” He concluded that “the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” While some human rights groups have criticized the Chávez government, Venezuela has had no pattern of state security forces murdering civilians, as is the case in Honduras.

Whatever one thinks of the democratic credentials of Chávez’s presidency—and we recognize that reasonable people can disagree about it—there is nothing in the record, when compared with that of his Honduran counterparts, to warrant the discrepancies in the Times’s coverage of the two governments.

We urge you to examine this disparity in coverage and language use, particularly as it may appear to your readers to track all too closely the U.S. government’s positions regarding the Honduran government (which it supports) and the Venezuelan government (which it opposes)—precisely the syndrome you describe and warn against in your column.

Sincerely,

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, MIT

Edward Herman, Professor Emeritus of Finance, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University

Sujatha Fernandes, Professor of Sociology, Queens College, CUNY Graduate Center

Corey Robin, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center

Adrienne Pine, Professor of Anthropology, American University

Mark Weisbrot, Ph.D, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of History and Latin American Studies, Pomona College

Katherine Hite, Professor of Political Science, Vassar College

Steve Ellner, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, Universidad de Oriente

George Ciccariello-Maher, Professor of Political Science, Drexel University

Daniel Kovalik, Professor of International Human Rights, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Gregory Wilpert, Ph.D, author of “Changing Venezuela by Taking Power”

Joseph Nevins, Professor of Geography, Vassar College

Nazih Richani, Director of Latin American Studies, Kean University

Steven Volk, Professor of History, Oberlin College

Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Salem State University

Keane Bhatt, North American Congress on Latin America

Chris Spannos, New York Times eXaminer

Michael Albert, ZNet

Oliver Stone, Film Director, “South of the Border”

To add your name to the petition, go to NYTX

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