Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Columbia Journalism Review has published a largely uncritical story about Adrianne Foglia, a former NBC news producer who now serves as press aide to Colombian President Andres Pastrana. CJR notes that Foglia has been hugely successful at influencing news coverage of Colombia: "One Foglia assistant said the office organized upwards of 80 percent of visiting journalists' agendas," which in turn has helped win foreign support such as a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package for Colombia. (More aid is bound to follow, now that U.S. State Department official Francis Taylor has publicly linked counter-insurgency in Latin America to the "war on terrorism.") What CJR omits, however, is the Colombian government's horrific, long-standing history of human rights violations perpetrated by members of the Colombian military and "illegal" paramilitary groups with close military ties. For the story that Foglia doesn't want covered, visit the website of the Colombia Support Network.
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