Veteran actor and activist Peter Coyote (SFChronicle.com, 5/30/09) writes about big media's overriding response to the "Largest Environmental Lawsuit in History--Silence." Taking a look at "the practices that are going on behind Chevron's carefully cultivated 'green' image" as they "drill for oil in the jungles of the Ecuadorian Amazon," Coyote does give credit to the Washington Post reporting of "several damning letters" like "an internal 1972 memo...instructing Texaco [now Chevron] officials in Ecuador to report only spills that attracted the attention of the news media." Nonetheless:

This is a case of epic proportions, where our commons, the lungs of the planet, have been violated needlessly and carelessly, to save money with no thought whatsoever paid to the thousands of people, and millions of species, that would be poisoned while the American media basically slept. Those of you who may have noticed the cozy interview with the [executive vice] president of Chevron in the SF Chronicle last week might not have noticed the small article in the Chronicle's business section mentioning the protests outside of the Chevron stockholders meeting in San Ramon on May 26. Cofan Indian leader Ermenegildo Quillolo, and lead-American attorney for the defense Steve Danziger, Ecuadorian community organizer Luis Yanza, members of Amazon Watch and a host of NGOs seeking to protect the Amazon were there protesting the actions of Chevron, and alerting stockholders that their company paid $30 billion dollars for a company with $27 billion dollars of liabilities attached, a gross failure of due diligence. We, the public, were not offered a comparable interview with the Ecuadorians, Steven Danziger or members of Amazon Watch.

Even though "this spill dwarfs the Exxon Valdez," Coyote notes that it, "aside from an excellent piece on 60 Minutes, remains virtually unreported. How many of you know about it? And if not, why not?" Listen to a similar story of oil company crimes and media neglect on the current FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Han Shan on Shell & Ken Saro-Wiwa" (5/29/09).

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave U.S. President Barack Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano's book The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent at last weekend's Summit of the Americas, the corporate media appeared to be caught off guard.

In its initial report, CNN (Newsroom, 4/18/09) appeared to be completely unaware of Galeano's classic 1971 treatise on the history of European and U.S. imperialism in Latin America, failing to correct Obama's initial mistaken belief that the book was penned by Chavez himself.

Both CNN (CNN Newsroom, 4/18/09) and AP (4/19/09) contrasted the immediate surge in the book's sales on Amazon with its previous "obscurity":

It's gone from obscurity to bestseller overnight. In just hours, it zoomed to No. 14 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, and on Friday, it was ranked number 60,280, making its way to the top of the list very fast.--CNN, 4/18/09

The publicity about the gift of the Galeano book helped propel it from relative obscurity to No. 13 on the Amazon.com list of bestsellers by Saturday night.--AP, 4/19/09

The book may not have ranked highly a month ago on Amazon, but it can hardly be described as "obscure." A classic Latin American history text that was banned by several military dictatorships, with its author "forced into exile as the book grew in popularity," according to the New Yorker, the book boasts more than 50 Spanish editions, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. As demonstrated by Chavez's choice, it still has currency with Latin American political leaders.