Need for Bridge Building
Martha Cooley’s article, “Haiti: the
AIDS Stigma” (September/October
1983 Report) calls long-overdue atten-
tion to the plight of Haitians who are
being victimized by the mixture of irra-
tional fear and reinforced prejudice
which has accompanied the AIDS epi-
demic. The Haitian tourist industry has
been practically destroyed and Haitians
in this country, up against government
attempts to deny them the right of resi-
dence, have been made to feel even
more unwelcome. The scapegoating
and racism implicit in this situation,
deplorable concomitants of the histori-
cally lop-sided relations between the
United States and its impoverished Car-
ibbean client state, need to be under-
scored again and again.
Yet despite its value in bringing to
light important aspects of the Haitian
AIDS dilemma, Cooley’s article leaves
us with a confused and over-simplified
version of a difficult and complex situ-
ation. Current (December 1983) Cen-
ter for Disease Control statistics show
4.6% of U.S. patients to be of Haitian
origin, not the “only about 2.5%” re-
ported. More importantly, Cooley’s
uncritical reliance on statements by of-
ficial Haitian government and medical
authorities seriously undermines the
credibility of her assertions; especially
since one important Haitian health offi-
cial responded openly to a New York
Times reporter that, if necessary, he
would lie for the good of his country.
For some time now, although Cooley
fails to mention it, both the mainstream
and gay media have been carrying re-
ports of Haitian government charges
that AIDS was brought into Haiti by
gay North American vacationers who
infected local male prostitutes. Such
contentions are impossible to prove,
given current uncertainty about the
etiology of AIDS and mounting evidence
that the disease is rapidly becoming a
world tragedy. Its victims now include:
women, Haitians living in countries
other than the United States and Haiti
and foreigners who have lived in Haiti.
Unfounded allegations such as these
create an atmosphere of distrust totally
inimical to the continuing cooperation
and on-site research and treatment so
desperately needed.
Cooley also dismisses as “another
glaring piece of sensationalism” the
Boston Globe article about Dr. Jane
Teas’ theory that AIDS may be related
to outbreaks of African Swine Fever in
Haitian pigs. Swine fever transmission
is still only one hypothesis among many,
but Dr. Teas and others have pointed to
possible coverups and early blocking
of research funds because of pressure
from powerful commercial interests.
U.S. government researchers have at-
tempted to characterize her as an “out-
sider” as far as the official medical
establishment is concerned.
Whatever the plausibility and eventual
outcome of the swine fever hypothesis,
more deserving of questioning is Cool-
ey’s own assertion that, in the words of
Dr. Warren Johnson, “The Haitians
are doing an excellent job.” For whom?
How? Faced with the paucity of re-
sources for research and treatment,
brutally unequal distribution of social
and medical services, the class struc-
ture of Haitian society, the viciousness
of its political regime and, now, with
the defensive posture of government
officials and elite doctors, how can we
believe that the necessary tasks can be
accomplished? These are urgent ques-
tions, involving human life and suffer-
ing here and in Haiti, that cannot be
brushed aside or distorted in order to
exhibit the AIDS crisis as just another
example of neocolonialism in action.
Furthermore, Cooley seems unwill-
ing to acknowledge, let alone criticize,
anti-gay bigotry. This weakens her
analysis, even if she aims to focus on
the impact of AIDS on Haiti and Hai-
tians and not to address the issue of
AIDS in its entirety.
Anti-gay bigotry has made research
into AIDS more difficult here and in
Haiti. Haitian victims of the disease are
often unwilling to acknowledge homo-
sexual experiences for fear of being
ostracized, making it more difficult to
trace the path of the disease.
Cooley states that the “implications”
of AIDS on Haitians “have been par-
ticularly devastating.” This is either a
truism–the impact of AIDS on each
risk group is “particular”–or a politi-
cally and humanly misguided attempt
to compete in the arena of victimiza-
tion. Gay men (not “homosexuals,” as
Cooley writes: there are no known
Continued on page 4.
Continued from page 2. cases of AIDS among lesbians) and Haitians and other victims of AIDS all suffer from inadequate funding of re- search and medical care, from hysteri- cal stigmatization by the public and even by medical workers. Can’t we emphasize this in combatting racism among white, gay men and homophobia among Haitians, and in fighting for adequate health care for all? Cooley’s article, by ignoring both Haiti’s harsh social realities and the impact of Haitian attitudes toward gay men creates obstacles to just such bridge building. Paul Horowitz Edward Strug New York, NY
Are the Media Critical? Dan Hallin’s “The Media Go to War–From Vietnam to Central Amer- ica,” (July/August 1983) gives a posi- tive view of the evolution of the mass media as a critical instrument that is not warranted by evidence. This follows in considerable part from the fact that Hallin’s basic frame of analysis is gov- ernment-media conflict, not government power and government-media solidar- ity. This emphasis is qualified and con- tradicted by other lines of argument, but it persists throughout in frequent reference to greater media sophistica- tion and illustrations of deeper media insight. Nowhere does Hallin mention the structure of the mass media, their own- ership, their integration into a multina- tional corporate network, dependence on sponsors, relations with government as licensee (radio and television) and the fact that most top-level media offi- cials and reporters are upper middle- class patriotic citizens. If we want to understand the main drift of the mass media in their selection of premises and frames of reference in portraying U.S. foreign policy, is a domination model or a media-government conflict model more illuminating? A domination model stresses the power of a government-corporate elite, which normally shares and agrees upon a set of major premises, to impose these on the underlying population. From this perspective the media have only limited autonomy, and their con-
flicts with the main policy drift are likely to be minor, in the nature of qualifications, and capable of being muted by a determined government. Within the domination-solidarity framework, government-media “con- flict” would be properly relegated to the marginal, not the core analysis, and attention would be paid to large areas of agreement and governmental pow- ers of mobilization of bias. In the only case where Hallin examines in some detail a campaign in which the govern- ment tried hard to get over a propa- ganda theme-the 1981 White Paper– media dissent was modest and the gov- ernment was able to get over quite ef- fectively their claim of external sourc- ing of the Salvadorean rebels. But Hal- lin fails to generalize from this case study. Hallin recognizes that episodic, “one shot” releases are not as important as day-in-day-out reiteration of government handouts, yet he regularly cites episodes of dissent from which he tends to gen- eralize without showing their quantita- tive significance or impact. An illustration is Hallin’s excessive attention to a March 20, 1982 CBS-Bill Moyers documentary, “Central Amer- ica in Revolt,” which according to Hallin “represents an important break” with many traditions by contesting sim- ple Cold War ideology and allowing Third World critics to speak their piece. One trouble is that this was a single program, and Hallin cites several others that stick closely to the pure, Cold War format. Hallin gives the impression that the Moyers program and other flashes of criticism represent a trend; but not only does he fail to substantiate this for the period covered, subsequent events have shown the power of a de- termined Administration to render the mass media exceedingly quiet. The Administration has also been quite suc- cessful in injecting just enough Cold War ideology and claims of Cuba-So- viet “intervention” to gain policy-ac- ceptability. Hallin’s model shows its inadequa- cies most clearly in thinking about the March 1982 election. [Other sources] show that the media caved in completely to the government’s propaganda require- ments. This included remarkable sup- pressions and lies institutionalized to a
degree it would be hard to surpass in a totalitarian state. In short, Hallin’s stress on media- government conflict leads him to un- dervalue the capacity of the goverment to overwhelm dissent, fix the frame of national discourse and profoundly af- fect the flow of information within that framework. With a different frame than Hallin’s, a different conclusion easily follows. Given the fact that Carter and Reagan have been supporting a [regime guilty of gross human rights violations], my conclusion is that only by dint of an exceptional degree of media coopera- tion has it been possible for the Ad- ministration to maintain its policies completely intact in the face of such an onslaught. Edward S. Herman Professor of Finance Wharton School University of Pennsylvania
Dan Hallin responds: It is not my intention to put forward a “conflict model” of the media in op- position to a “domination model.” I focus on conflict because I believe the U.S. establishment has become divided and foreign policy therefore politicized to a degree far greater than we have seen since the onset of the Cold War, a change worth documenting especially for an audience which, as I assume is true of most who read Report on the Americas, doesn’t need to be lectured about imperialism or the fact that the media have generally been complicit in it. At the same time it is central to my argument that this change is limited, particularly by ideology and the per- sistence of certain journalistic routines. As for my “model” of the media, which is not elaborated explicitly in “The Media Go to War,” it is Gramsci- an: I believe, that is, that control of consciousness in an advanced capitalist society is maintained indirectly, through the loose but powerful influence of a worldview and set of social practices accepted as common sense at all levels of society. This is why I do not dwell on such things as corporate ownership (owners do not in fact control the day- to-day political content of the news) or FCC regulation (which is now being dismantled).
