editorial comment Always amazing given a lot of jounalists' affection for substances....maybe that's why so many hacks are bitter (Then again, who would not be when working for R. Murdoch....)

A September 27 article by Juan Pablo Toro of the Associated Press titled "Colombia Police Aim to Disrupt Drug Trade" is yet another example of U.S. mainstream media functioning as a mouthpiece for U.S. foreign policy. Given most U.S. media outlets' reliance on wire service reports for international news, the Associated Press is a primary provider of information to the U.S. public. This latest drug war article reads like a print commercial for U.S. counternarcotics operations in Colombia with Toro providing virtually no context or analysis to help the reader put the depicted events in perspective.

The Colombia Police Aim to Disrupt Drug Trade piece illustrates the problematic nature of the U.S. mainstream media relying on official sources for their information. For his article, Toro was allowed to accompany the Colombian anti-narcotics police on a raid against a cocaine-processing lab in southern Colombia. Along with an Associated Press photographer, Toro was transported on one of the operation's U.S.-supplied helicopters to witness first-hand how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being utilized in the war on drugs in Colombia.

In return for such access, Toro dutifully described the "successful" operation in dramatic fashion, describing how "Seven helicopter gunships skirted the steep mountainsides, then quickly descended on a cocaine lab, marked by a smoke grenade thrown by one of the raiders." He continued his account by making himself and his photographer part of the story: "With the wash of the noisy rotors flattening nearby coca bushes, the door gunner made a hand signal, ordering those aboard to jump. The journalists and the raiders leapt to the earth. The police quickly fanned out, assault rifles at the ready. 'We are in the cocaine empire of the FARC,' [Col. Alvaro] Velandia declared as he surveyed the scene."

Toro then described the action on the ground: "All the while, a police explosives expert was lining the drug lab and the gold mine with charges. The police wanted to get in and out fast, before rebels of the FARC's 29th Front could arrive to counterattack." The Associated Press writer then colorfully described the destruction of the lab: "The police stood back and watched as the explosives went off, echoing off the mountainsides. Pieces of the drug lab flew high into the air. The gold mine collapsed."

Toro saved the best for last with his description of their departure from the target area: "About three hours after they arrived, the raiding party clambered back into the helicopters. One of the door gunners spotted a muzzle flash from the ground and opened fire. A cascade of machine-gun shell casings danced off the floor of the chopper and tumbled out the door, as the chopper clattered back to base at Pasto city where the raiders began planning a fresh operation."

The mission described in the article was not placed in any sort of context, unless one counts Toro's inclusion of claims made by the deputy director of Colombia's anti-narcotics police that more than 100 cocaine labs have been destroyed so far this year. There was no mention of the failure of more than $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars over the past four years to diminish the flow of cocaine to the United States. There was also no mention of the social and economic consequences borne by peasants in southern Colombia who rely on the drug trade—growing coca plants or working in the labs—because decades of government neglect have made it difficult to survive growing legal crops.

Two days before the Associated Press article appeared in dozens of newspapers throughout the United States, the European news agency Inter Press Service published a piece by Raúl Pierri titled "Protests Against Anti-Drug Crop Spraying Across Border Heat Up" that examined the social consequences of the drug war on communities along the Colombia-Ecuador border. In other words, it addressed how U.S.-sponsored drug war operations were affecting people. The contrast between the two articles was immediately evident. While Pierri quoted official sources—Ecuador's deputy foreign minister—the reporter also used an array of other sources that included an international human rights group, an Ecuadorian indigenous federation, a campesino organization, and an environmental group. Pierri also provided some historical context by explaining the overall U.S. counternarcotics strategy in the region as well as the funding and tactics used.

The Inter Press Service article, as any good journalistic piece should, raised as many questions as it answered by providing various viewpoints about a controversial issue. Particularly important was its willingness to provide views that differ from accounts emanating from those officials responsible for waging the war on drugs. In sharp contrast, Toro and the Associated Press simply published an article for the U.S. audience that could easily have been penned by a state department scribe.

by Garry Leech

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