Journalism: When Truth is More Important than Optimism

Perched on the highest rungs of government, a crypto-fascist element continues to regard incorruptible and outspoken journalists as gadflies and muckrakers, meddlers, purveyors of social discontent, and blabbermouths who threaten the established order.

By W. E. Gutman
Journalism is the first draft of history. On the printed page, on radio and TV are seized, then frozen in time, indelible images of the human drama. Lucid and hard-nosed renderings discourage revisionists from tampering with fact. Alas, in an imperfect world, fact is calumny, reality is disgrace, and truth is scandal. For those whose only loyalty is to the truth, it’s a lonely world as well. The price for such devotion is often steep and those who are willing to pay it never lack enemies.

To the enemies of truth, journalists make an especially appetizing quarry. If our accounts lack focus or detail, we are dismissed as shallow and irrelevant. If our exposés or editorials are graphic, irreverent or too close for comfort, we're accused of needlessly giving readers palpitations. No matter what we report, journalists are sure to be reviled by someone along the way.

Mercifully, most readers seek to be informed. Most possess the mental elasticity to judge an article on its merits. It is to them that scrupulous journalists devote their columns. Others see conspiracy in the truth. Others yet are so jarred by it that they want it suppressed, obliterated, reduced to ashes (along with the reporters who unearth it).

Alas, not all journalists rush in where angels fear to tread. Some are daunted by the truth. Political correctness (the sacrifice of truth at the altar of hypocrisy) keeps advertisers happy. But silence screams and self-censorship is as instructive an account of what the press cannot or will not lay bare as a slobbering confession.

Unlike open scandal, which peaks in an orgy of vitriol and reproof, then dies, silence leaves a trail of churlish speculation and a scent of putrefaction. It is bad enough when the government hides behind a wall of secrecy and lies. It is infinitely worse when the media -- the conscience of a free society -- sheepishly corrupt their mission by colluding to keep the public in the fog of ignorance.

Despite opinions to the contrary journalists do not get paid to generate solutions for the problems they identify. Their job is to observe, chronicle and report on the dynamics that cause or contribute to these problems – not solve them.

The great frustration of journalists is not with the carping of dogmatists and know-nothings but with the cowardice and perfidy of those empowered to give the truth a voice -- the newspapers and networks that choose to remain silent out of fear, political expediency or to protect their precious advertising revenues.

Working in Central America, where journalists are often accused of being troublemakers, can be daunting. People in positions of power and influence still equate a quest for democracy, respect for human rights and calls for transparency in governance with political agitation. Legitimate popular aspirations in a region where oligarchs numbering fewer than 10 percent of the population own and control 90 percent of the national wealth are in turn viewed -- deceitfully -- as a socialist conspiracy.

Perched on the highest rungs of government, a crypto-fascist element continues to regard incorruptible and outspoken journalists as gadflies and muckrakers, meddlers, purveyors of social discontent, and blabbermouths who threaten the established order.

With a combined population of about 30 million, Central America, compromised by economic decay and convulsed by horrific violence, is a region perilously teetering on the brink of anarchy. Heir to former military governments, civilian puppet regimes continue to thwart efforts to bring social equality by intimidating -- and often silencing -- the feeble and indecisive voices of reform.

Gross disparities in wealth and status, unfavorable currency exchange rates, mounting trade deficits and foreign debts, unforgiving rates of inflation, low wages and skyrocketing unemployment have all conspired to further weaken already faltering economies. Conservative estimates place the combined regional unemployment rate at between 35 percent and 45 percent. Better than 75 percent of all households earn poverty-level incomes. Indigence among children under 5 has reached 85 percent. For those aged between 6 and 14, poverty now exceed 86 percent.

Reduction in family income has also contributed to a rise in (illegal) child labor and, increasingly to the sexual exploitation of minors. Social programs, few as they are, have been steadily stripped to the bone by recurring and harsh austerity measures. As a result, more children are now being abandoned or expelled by families who obey the Church’s mandate to “multiply and populate the Earth.” Regrettably, while the Church voices pious concern for the unborn, it does nothing for the living. Most of these children are consigned to the streets, where they grow up and learn skills that ready them for a life of crime. The systematic, proactive, state-sponsored extermination of homeless minors and gang members has now reached epidemic proportions.

Once reactive and sporadic, bullying, threats, illegal detentions, vicious beatings, torture, rape and extra-judicial executions at the hands of law-enforcement agents are now routine. Corrupt and inept judicial systems turn a blind eye to such impunity and rarely convict the culprits. So the carnage continues.

Like its neighbors, Honduras, the third poorest nation in the Isthmus, and the most corrupt, has long since surrendered to self-censorship. The print and electronic media blithely splatter their pages and TV news programs with images of horrific violence, blood and gore. But they refuse to point fingers at the real source of malignancy -- successive dynasties of deceitful, power-hungry plutocrats who sold their soul to the US and (like self-righteous little Costa Rica) to Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese and South Korean business interests.

And like its neighbors, Honduras lacks an independent, fearless and genuinely incorruptible voice that dares tell it like it is. Paralyzed with fear, Honduran journalists are reluctant to admit that every problem the nation faces can be traced to a symbiosis of greed, negligence, and monumental ineptitude in high places -- and quasi-illiteracy, sloth, fear and indifference among the masses. Fearing that he might be “accidentally run over by a bus” or “poisoned with arsenic-laced Coke at a press conference,” a noted Honduran newsman who spoke on condition of anonymity declared, “There’s no free press in this country. It's for sale -- literally. A journalist who values his life must dilute his sense of ethics with a strong mixture of pragmatism and caution. We are all walking on a tightrope.”

When the press capitulates to government pressure, all is lost. In the process, the lambs are led to slaughter by the wolves in a deafening silence of apathy and inertia. A nation deprived of an honest press is asleep at the switch and faces an imminent and rude awakening.

As the only English-language medium in Honduras, Honduras Weekly should tone down its absurdly idyllic portrayals of a nation in disarray and level with its readers about some of the more unsavory aspects of life. (2/23/10)

Note: The author is a widely published veteran journalist and author. On assignment in Central America from 1994 to 2006, he covered politics, the military, human rights and other socio-economic issues. He lives in southern California.