I don't think the results of the advisers question are terribly surprising. On the one hand, Evo really is badly advised, at least at some moments and on some issues. On the other hand, it is common in any country for supporters of charismatic leaders to blame the advisers when those leaders encounter difficulties. The "average citizens" who ask questions of Chavez during Alo Presidente often touch on this theme. And of course back when GWB was still capable of polling above 30 percent it was the State Dept.-DOD battles that were to blame for problems in Iraq, not the shortcomings of the Decider...

On a separate note, I'd like to hear your take on the "dialogue," in particular PODEMOS 7-point preconditions. I don't deny the manifold errors of the Morales administration, but the PODEMOS idea seems to me to be yet another example of the utter lack of seriousness regarding dialogue within the opposition. And that's PODEMOS, let alone the prefects. Over the last 18 months news coverage has consistently neglected the complete intransigence on the part of the oppos on every important point. The government can be a gaffe machine but if I were in the administration I'd find this very frustrating.

JD: Good observations. I'll try to get back on the dialogue issue as soon as I get a bigger block of free time (I'm still unpacking from my recent move to Baltimore).

One more thing: there's an interview with Tuto Quiroga in today's La Razon that captures some of the dynamics I mentioned. On the one hand, he offers a full-throated (or demagoguic, depending on one's tastes) defense of PODEMOS' actions, which are (supposedly) necessary to prevent a totalitarian state. Someone who truly believed this would be compelled to maintain a stance of principled intransigence, no? Or just maybe the only principle here is "no man to my political right." Probably it's somewhere in between, but it's hard to say, given the ridiculously soft questioning. NOTHING to push him on Evo's "totalitarian project," let alone the effects of opposition intransigence. This is typical, and La Razon is far from the worst media outlet in this regard.

Link: http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20080522_006280/nota_247_600666.htm

To be fair, it's not that the Bolivian media is biased (though, like all media, each source has its biases). But rather it's that Bolivia lacks "investigative" or "hard-hitting" journalism. Most pieces are soft interviews or stenography exercises.

Bolivia does seem to lack investigative journalism on some current political events and power players, but some scandals are investigated thoroughly. For example, there has been ongoing reporting on the lynching of three police officer in a town near Cochabamba, which it turns out were lynched after they tried to extort double the normal rate from drug traffickers-residents. A touchy subject that is risky to investigate, but the coverage has been good and at least one commandante has resigned to due to links with the affair.

But if you think that the major newspapers and television station are not biased Miguel you have not been paying attention. Opinion is better than Los Tiempos in Cochabamba, but all the dailies are owned by wealthy folks who favor capitalist free market policies. They constantly harp on MAS policies and rarely have a kind word for Morales. Every editorial and cartoon belittles and mimics Morales and Linera and portrays them as stupid, ignorant, totalitarian and the only cause of the current political deadlock. You never see the same scrutiny of Marincovich, Tuto, Costa, etc. Every once and while, at least in Opinion, you might get an invited columnist that blames both sides and makes vague calls for unity. All bad economic news, like inflation, is put on the front page and Morales receives all the blame for the problem. Good economic news, like the value of Bolivian exports rising 50 percent in the first quarter of this year, is buried behind the all-white elite society pages and given a few inches of text. There are myriad examples like that, and we have not event left Cochabamba. El Deber has completely sold out to the elite pro-autonomy movement and is far from objective in its analysis of anything. Those are the papers I follow closely, but I am sure the same is true for the other major dailies.

Shanqueros: You routinely assume too much, dude. Clearly the press is biased. But isn't all media biased? There's a reason I put such a caveat in parenthesis (look above more carefully). My issue wasn't that Bolivian press is biased (again, ALL media has its biases).

There are certainly more "populist" (or, in Spanish, popular) press sources. El Diario is one of them. Another good one is La Patria (an Oruro daily available broadly enough). If you want a Santa Cruz populist paper, you can search out Estrella del Oriente. Interestingly, some papers owned by the same conglomerate have opposing biases, depending on their regional distribution. Both El Deber & El Alteño (no online version) are owned by Grupo Líder, though the latter takes a much more friendly view towards Evo's government.

The television biases are more obvious, but again there are both government & opposition propaganda sources available. Although many Bolivians get their news from radio, which has a slew of pro-government propaganda sources (some of them really bad).

As you can see, I have indeed been paying attention. As for the society pages in the papers. Yes, they are quite robust. But I hardly qualify those as sections of the news.

You responded to a post about La Razon and you stated that Bolivian media is not biased, rather their sources are biased. Which any reasonable person would read to mean that the newspapers and other media are objective only the individuals that they cover are biased. If you wish to back-pedal from that statement it is a wise move. I agree though that Canal 7 is unabashadly pro-MAS, but that is one television station amongst about ten privately owned ones. I also agree that many radio programs especially in rural areas are much more radical socialist in their perspective, and often irrationally so, but the theme of the posts was newspapers.

Shanqueros: The "sources" I referred to were the publications themselves (as in "my source for this information is the New York Times").

Perhaps the confusion comes because media is both a singular & a plural noun. I meant media (plural), to include La Razón & other sources (including radio & television). So you thought I meant media (singular), to meant that LR isn't biased, but only its sources (the sources LR uses). In the future, I will try to be more explicit.

Miguel writes:

Perhaps the confusion comes because media is both a singular & a plural noun

Although English is not my first language, I dare to say that the noun media is always plural - the correspondent singular noun is "medium".

Best regards,

Jorge

I think technically Jorge is correct, but Miguel has it right in terms of parlance. Still I do not think we get very far saying all media is biased and therefore one cannot criticize any media because of their biases. It is something aking to saying we are all guilty therefore none of us are... There are varying degrees of bias, and most respectable newspapers acknowledge that the rights of the press come with responsibilities to at least try to incorporate alternative perspectives. That responsibility is absent in the major Bolivian dailies, but I appreciate the references to La Patria and Estrella del Oriente and I will check them out. Also it seems that any doubts about the accuracy of the posts here is taken very personally, which is unfortunate.

Miguel, what about jd's question above? He used the phrase "utter lack of seriousness regarding dialogue within the opposition." Due to suspicions about "Evo's 'totalitarian project'." The rhetoric that Evo is a dictator and worse seems common in SCZ.

First, I apologize if sometimes I seem to have a thin skin. But I get frequent emails (not just comments) from readers who seem to assume all sorts of things about me. After a while, it does get a bit infuriating.

Shanqueros is right to suggest that there can be degrees of bias in news media. But the arguments about media biases (especially in "reputable" media, which would include things as varied as the New York Times & La Razon, the Bolivian equivalent) tend to be extremely problematic. We all have subjective biases. Therefore our arguments about media being biased (a condemnation about its lack of "objectivity") must necessarily be based on our own subjective interpretations of what the "truth" (or even just "facts") are. Too often, the arguments about media bias (whether directed at Fox News or the Times) are simplistic copouts.

As for the rhetoric from Santa Cruz about Evo. I agree that it's problematic, of course. Though "Santa Cruz" is not some homogenous entity. Additionally, the rhetoric about "oligarchs" is also charged. Thus, both sides do it (and both are wrong to do it).