In one of the questions to Chomsky regarding the treatment of Haiti in the media, ¡Reclama! mentions various comments made in the U.S. media regarding the country:
Any comments on the U.S. media regarding Haiti following the earthquake? For example, Pat Robertson’s “pact with the devil,” David Brooks’ “progress-resistant culture,” pleas with transnational capital to create more sweatshops (Kirstof), Aristide being a despot and a cheat (Jon Lee Anderson). Even Amy Wilentz has compared Aristide to Duvalier in The New York Times.
Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker and one of the most celebrated mainstream commentators on Latin America, took exception. He spouted a wide range of allegations--none of which was borne out by the facts--including serious accusations that ¡Reclama! had misquoted him, taken his comments out of context, unfairly and unjustifiably included him with the rest of mainstream media (again, he's a staff writer for The New Yorker), and that ¡Reclama! had carelessly referred to Pat Robertson as a journalist, among other invective. He didn't attempt to address any of ¡Reclama!'s points in the following exchange. He has yet to retract any of his defamatory claims, or even reconcile the argument of his original article with the meaning he had intended, described below:
**jon lee Anderson Says:We were hoping for a more civil, well-constructed response from one of the contributors to a well-respected publication like The New Yorker. Guess we shouldn't have held our breath.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Please dont misquote me. To clarify, in my recently published piece on haiti in The New Yorker, I called Papa Doc and Baby Doc ‘despots’, and Aristide a ‘cheat.’ And I stand by that statement. Based on all the available evidence i have seen, that is precisely what he was. To take it out of context as you have done, in an apparent attempt to paint me with some kind of “mainstream media” tarbrush is both unjustified and unfair; my characterization of Aristide as a cheat is part of a sentence in a six thousand-word piece I wrote recently about Haiti, and was meant only to illustrate the idea that, overall, Haiti has been poorly served by some of its leaders in the past half-century. Few people could quibble with that assertion, I believe,
**Keane Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 11:32 am
I’m sorry Mr. Anderson feels misrepresented. My intention was to give a very brief flavor of the commentary regarding Haiti in the US. If the information I present below is simply due to a careless, honest mistake on the part of Anderson, I hope he can clarify the matter for his readers. I would promptly change the quote in any reproduction of this interview. My larger point is that careless mistakes, like comparing Aristide with real despots, is something that is not corrected within the establishment press.
The direct quote from Mr. Anderson’s piece, “Neighbor’s Keeper,” with context:
“[Haiti’s] traditional exports, coffee and sugar, have collapsed, and manufacturing has been in decline for decades. It has suffered riots and hideous violence and depressingly regular political upheavals, led by a succession of despots and cheats: Papa Doc, Baby Doc, the priest Aristide.”
From the sentence in question, it is impossible to logically infer a distinction between the first two persons, Papa Doc and Baby Doc as being solely despots, and Aristide being exclusively a cheat. To belabor the point, both qualifiers are in the plural form; two terms are used to describe three people. Therefore my attribution to Anderson in the interview, “Aristide being a despot and a cheat” is a logical inference.
For Mr. Anderson’s complaint to achieve a level of plausibility, he would have had to write: “It has suffered riots and hideous violence and depressingly regular political upheavals, led by a succession of despots and *a cheat*: Papa Doc, Baby Doc, the priest Aristide.”
Certainly with context added, Anderson’s original claim is even bolder, attributing in an even less specific way the riots, violence and political upheaval to the three leaders in question, further muddying up any way to clearly and discretely attribute the events and roles of the three leaders.
Again, if Mr. Anderson would like to clarify his point to the readers of the New Yorker in an addendum, I will promptly change my extraction in future versions of the interview.
This is not the proper forum to rebut Anderson’s characterization of Aristide as a cheat and I will let readers do the research. A good place to start is with the works of Chomsky, Paul Farmer, Mark Weisbrot and Peter Hallward, particularly his “Damming the Flood.” Mainstream critics of the 2004 coup like Jeffrey Sachs also make important points. I hope the readers’ research will provide more information than all the available evidence Mr. Anderson has seen.
**jon lee Anderson Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Mr. Bhatt: Thanks so much for that lesson in grammar and ethics. I feel much better now about being made to share a pew alongside with Pat Roberston in your characterization of the “U.S. media,” whom I now learn, in your inference, is an actual journalist and not, as I have long thought, a Christian “televangelist.” Perhaps the distinction was unintended, a mistake made by Mr. Bhatt in a moment of carelessness. Am I splitting hairs here?
**Josephus P. Franks Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Keane’s reply was the kindest, most grandfatherly b***h slap I have ever read.
As if additional proof other than his original article were needed, what Jon Lee’s responses prove is his ignorance of Haiti, which he wrote about for… whatever the name of that magazine I always see lying around dentists’ offices is.
As for his hair-splitting, it is a transparently ineffectual attempt to distract attention from the fact that by casting aspersions against Aristide in the same breath, so to speak, as the Duvaliers, John Lee in effect put on a dunce cap and leaned sloppily on the pulp passing for journalism in the United States.
**Michael Galhouse Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I fail to see where the interviewer suggests that “US media” figures are equivalent to journalists. The names are lumped together because as members of the media they influence public opinion. In fact, it seems quite generous that he named Mr. Anderson after Brooks and Kristof. If one reads carefully, Bhatt seems to provide a logical progression of journalistic authority regarding Haiti. The appropriate response would have been for Mr. Anderson to realize his mistake and clarify his intended meaning.
**jon lee Anderson Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Keane, Josephus, Michael, thanks a whole bunch! I enjoyed our little repartee down the Indy alley here, even if it has felt a little-one-sided at times. But I must leave now and get back to Main Street, out there where all those other ineffectual dimwits in dunce caps are. Whenever I feel the need of some bitch-slapping by you guys — if you can get out of the group-grope long enough to o it — I’ll be sure to check back in. Au-revoir!
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