We love a free press, but does the Latin American version always have to be so darn elitist? (Image from George Baxter, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
El Universo, the Ecuadorian newspaper that local courts have hit with a $40 million fine for slandering President Rafael Correa, took a curious tack this week as it sought to defend itself in the court of public opinion while the courts of law prepared to weigh a final appeal (cassation actually, if any lawyers are keeping score).
I got this note Monday, sent to the e-mail I use for my energy blog.
xxx@podesta.com via gmail.com to settysoutham…
Dear Steven,
I hope you are aware of the egregious attack on independent media currently underway in Ecuador and more generally across the region. If you have considered covering this topic, or already have something in the works, the next couple days are a great time to write. A high court hearing, followed immediately by a decision on the El Universo case, has been scheduled for Tuesday, January 24 at 9:00 am….
Wait: @Podesta.com?
Podesta Group is a lobbying and PR shop in Washington. When I called the them, a principal there said that the client is Nicolas Perez – one of the directors of El Universo - who, he emphasized, is a US citizen. He also noted that the job is PR, not lobbying.
And they seem to have done it well, unless the New York Times, LA Times, and Miami Herald all just coincidentally decided to run editorials on the topic within days of the El Universo hearing.
Now, I understand that El Universo needed to do what it takes to prevail. But why go to Washington to work the US press? This specific case may be about human rights and censorship, but in Correa’s Ecuador, there is something bigger at stake here — sovereignty. If there’s one thing that unites the so-called Bolivarians of South America, it isn’t that they are particularly left-wing, but rather that they put themselves in opposition to US domination of Latin America. Yes, they at times overstate the case — I doubt the US caused the Haiti earthquake. And even if the DEA was spying in Bolivia, I doubt they were any good at it. But they do make the case, and their supporters eat it up. There is a lot of vaguely anti-US resentment just laying around to be harvested in the world. (And to be fair, it’s obviously well-deserved in much of Latin America.)
I’m not making a pro-censorship argument. But it does make it awkward for El Universal’s defenders when the newspaper acts exactly the way an elite tool of The Empire would be expected to.
Anyway, back here on the home continent, the cassation hearing in the El Universo case was delayed. One of the judges called in sick.