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Politicians:
the Major Corrupters of the News Media
By John Virtue
Alex
Penelas |
When Héctor
Silva was elected to his first term as mayor of San Salvador
in 1997, he was surprised to find the names of 75 journalists
on the city's payroll. The most prominent former guerrilla
to be elected to public office in El Salvador, Silva ordered
the payments to the journalists immediately stopped.
Fast forward to
2000 in Miami, sometimes called the capital of Latin America.
The mayor of Miami-Dade county, Alex Penelas, and 17 other
candidates for elective office, including a judge, were discovered
to have made payments to three radio commentators.
According to the
Miami Herald, which broke the story, the major beneficiary
was Martha Flores, a salaried talk-show host on Radio Mambí.
She received over $63,000 for helping the campaigns of eight
candidates, many of them billed by her advertising agency,
MarFlo Advertising Inc. One-third of the money came from former
Miami commissioner Humberto Hernández, now serving
four years in prison for bank fraud.
The other commentators
were Carlos D'Mant of La Poderosa and Ricky Thomas of English-language
WMBM.
Opponents of the
trio's candidates charged that the commentators attacked them
on their programs. The Reverend Richard P. Dunn, who lost
to Humberto Hernández in a 1996 race, told the Herald
that Flores and Hernández regularly attacked him on
her program. "She is a paid political mercenary, not
a journalist," Dunn said. "She literally destroyed
me."
For her part, Flores
denied any conflict of interest. "I treat everyone the
same," she said. D'Mant echoed her position, saying he
does not play favorites. "I always yell, 'I'm not for
sale, I'm for hire,'" he was quoted as saying.
While Flores is
paid by Radio Mambí, D'Mant is compensated by La Poderosa
through the amount of advertising placed on his program, receiving
a 50 percent commission. Other commentators on Spanish-language
radio in Miami also receive a share of advertising revenue.
Claudia Puig, general
manager of Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, which owns Radio
Mambí, said she had told Flores earlier not to mix
politics and journalism. "We do not allow her to be involved
in a conflict of interest like that," she said. "This
will not happen again."
Her counterpart
at La Poderosa, vice-president Ana V. Rodríguez, whose
husband owns the station, said they are only concerned if
off-air activities affect the content of the programs.
Commenting editorially
on the issue, the Herald said:
Ethical journalists take pains to avoid just such conflicts
of interest or the appearance of them. Ethical journalists
don't accept favors, much less money, from people they cover.
And ethical media companies - be they newspapers or broadcasters
- hold employees to such standards, insulating the journalists
from the business departments.
No matter how much the radio hosts defend their impartiality,
the conflict is implicit. Politicians who pay them are seeking
access to influential voices.
As an ethics instructor
who has given workshops in 13 Latin American countries, I
have reached the conclusion that the greatest corrupters of
journalists are politicians. But seldom is there documented
proof of their payments to journalists.
However, the newspaper
La Jornada reported in March that receipts showed that Oscar
Espinosa Villareal, a mayor of Mexico City in the early 1990s,
regularly made payments to journalists for favorable news
coverage.
Ecuadorian congressman
Leonidas Plaza Sommers thought he was paying for longtime
favorable coverage when he gave 1.9 million sucres - about
$750 - to a correspondent for El Universo of Guayaquil. The
correspondent wrote an initial favorable article but then
proceeded to write some unfavorable ones. That upset Plaza
Sommers, so he complained to the editor of El Universo in
1996 and sent as proof a photocopy of the check he had given
the journalist. The newspaper fired the journalist and published
an article about the incident, illustrated by a reproduction
of the check.
The Panamanian
press discovered in 1994 that some 30 journalists were on
the payroll of Balbina Herrera, first female president of
the Legislature. She said they fulfilled "public relations"
duties. She is currently president of the Revolutionary Democratic
Party that supported Manuel Noriega when he was in power.
I recently led
a workshop in Miami on ethics for 10 Haitian journalists.
One of them said he had recently received a check from a politician
in appreciation for an article he had written about him. "I
kept the check," he said. "I don't think I did anything
wrong." Before I could comment, colleagues around the
table started to criticize him for a lack of ethics.
The Haitians had
just left Miami when the Herald published its revelation about
payments to the radio commentators.
And Héctor
Silva? A medical doctor who was a member of the Revolutionary
Democratic Front during the 12-year civil war which ended
in 1992, he easily won reelection as mayor this year with
no journalists hidden on his payroll. By the way, his son,
Héctor, is a journalist.
John Virtue is
publisher
of Pulso and deputy director of the International Media Center
at Florida International University
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