New York Times reporter Larry Rohter turned in a factually challenged fact-check of Oliver Stone's new film South of the Border. So Stone and the film's co-writers Mark Weisbrot and Tariq Ali wrote a devastating rebuttal. A reader passed along a link to that piece to Rohter, suggesting that he "should be embarrassed" by his review.

Unsurprisingly, Rohter would not seem to be embarrassed at all, judging his reply email, which FAIR has received:

Dear Mr. Fuentes:

Actually, it's Oliver Stone and company who need to heed your advice. I've been scrupulously honest in my reporting and writing, and they are offended and embarrassed at having their many errors and inaccuracies disclosed. Rather than owning up to those mistakes, they've chosen to double down and up the ante. Where they might merely have been mistaken before, they are now lying outright, the letter you link to below being the prime example.

Don't take my word for it. I urge you to go back and look at what Stone and his screenwriters are saying in that letter. As regards the issue of U.S. oil imports from OPEC countries, for example, go ahead and click on the two links that Stone & Weisbrot provide and look at the numbers contained there. You will see that the United States has imported more oil from Saudi Arabia than Venezuela every year since 2000. So no matter how Stone and company want to slice, dice bend or twist it, the assertion they make in the film about U.S. oil imports is simply wrong. The numbers are clear and indisputable.

Same thing goes for the 1998 Venezuela presidential race. The numbers don't lie: Irene Saez got only 3 percent of the vote, compared to 40 percent for Henrique Salas Romer, yet she is Chavez's "main opponent" and he is not? Let's apply that same pretzel logic to some other elections and see what we come up with. Was George Bush's "main opponent" in 2000 Al Gore or Ralph Nader? Was Harry Truman's "main opponent" in 1948 Thomas E. Dewey or the Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond? Was Jimmy Carter's "main opponent" in 1980 Ronald Reagan or John Anderson?

It's also worthwhile using a little bit of simple logic to analyze the issue of the Cochabamba water privatization. Tariq Ali's argument seems to be that there is no substantial difference between a sale and a 40 year lease. Granted that the notion of private ownership may be anathema to someone with his ideological leanings, and therefore his understanding of different property regimens may be flawed. But the outright sale of an asset is not the same as granting a concession to use that asset for a fixed period of time, as anyone who has ever leased a car knows well. The devil is in the details, and Stone and company have chosen to ignore those. I could subject each of their other wild and erroneous claims to the same kind of dissection for you, but I trust you get the picture from the examples I've cited. Thank you for writing.

Talk about doubling down.

Rohter, for some reason, decided that this passing comment in the film deserved to be debunked: "We import more oil from Venezuela than any other OPEC nations." As the film makes clear, that comment was made by an oil industry analyst in a 2002 TV appearance, though Rohter's Times piece oddly cited 2004-10 data to contradict him. Stone and co. cite 1997-2001 as a more relevant time frame; in that period, the United States did in fact buy more oil from Venezuela than from Saudi Arabia (though in 2000-01, Saudi Arabia was the bigger supplier). In his emailed response, Rohter ignores this explanation, and says the links provided by Stone, Weisbrot and Ali don't support their point. It would seem that they do. It's a strange item to seize on, anyway; the filmmakers included the oil analyst to make the point that various business interests--including oil companies--supported the coup against Chavez, which is not at all controversial.

Rohter's complaint about Chavez's 1998 election is similarly tendentious. Irene Saez was considered by many observers to be Chavez's main rival in the presidential campaign. That's what reporter Bart Jones says in the documentary; it's also what the New York Times reported shortly after Chavez's victory (12/9/98):

Until last spring, Irene Saez, a former Miss Universe, had been leading in voter surveys, peaking at 35.7 percent to Mr. Chavez's 20.6 percent. Then the price of oil, which underpins Venezuela's entire economy, fell steeply. "We went from an optimistic country to a pessimistic one," said Luis Vicente Leon, director of the Datanalysis polling agency.

The following month, Miss Saez accepted a lukewarm endorsement from one of the two traditional parties. The backing compromised her claims to being an outsider and her popularity ratings slid into the single digits.

On the debate over Bolivian water rights, the matter seems hardly worth reviewing; it comes down to how one chooses to characterize a deal that would hand a private company 40-year control over a nation's water supply. Apparently in Rohter's mind calling such a deal "privatization" is evidence that someone has the wrong "ideological leanings" to understand complex financial transactions.

Rohter assures that he "could subject each of their other wild and erroneous claims to the same kind of dissection for you." I think we've seen enough.

It's not a huge surprise that a correspondent for a newspaper that supported the coup that ousted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would dislike a film that offers a more sympathetic view of Chavez's politics.

That said, Larry Rohter's review (New York Times, 6/26/10) of the new Oliver Stone film South of the Border still manages to surprise-- mostly because Rohter's attempt to fact-check the movie is such a failure.

Rohter's first big catch is this:

Mr. Stone argues in the film that Colombia, which "has a far worse human rights record than Venezuela," gets "a pass in the media that Chavez doesn't" because of his hostility to the United States.

Rohter doesn't attempt to demonstrate that this is false; instead, he points out that the Human Rights Watch logo "appears on the screen. That would seem to imply that the organization is part of the 'political double standard' of which Mr. Stone complains. "

Well, that could be. Or it could mean that they've studied the human rights situations in both countries. Rohter goes to the group for a response. And here's what he got:

"It's true that many of Chavez's fiercest critics in Washington have turned a blind eye to Colombia's appalling human rights record," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of the group's Americas division.

So the movie suggests that Colombia's rights record gets far less attention that Venezuela's--a contention that would seem to be true based on the amount of press attention granted to abuses in each country (Extra!, 2/09).  Rohter goes to Human Rights Watch, and they... agree with the film's argument that Colombia gets a pass in Washington.

Rohter devotes a lot of space to discussing the 2002 shootings in Caracas that preceded the coup. He seems to insinuate that Stone is getting things wrong (arguing that one expert in the film is a biased source, for example), but if there's a lesson here in how Oliver Stone abused the truth-- Rohter maligns Stone's "tendentious attitude"-- I am unable to locate it.

The movie isn't just about Hugo Chavez; the point is to take stock of the leftward political shift in Latin America. Rohter finds problems here, too (the Ali referenced here is Tariq Ali, who co-wrote the film with economist Mark Weisbrot):

Trying to explain the rise of Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia who is a Chávez acolyte, Mr. Ali refers to a controversial and botched water privatization in the city of Cochabamba.

The problem with that? Rohter explains:

In reality, the government did not sell the water supply: It granted a consortium that included Bechtel a 40-year management concession in return for injections of capital to expand and improve water service and construction of a dam for electricity and irrigation.

Oh, they didn't sell the water supply; they granted a private corporate a "a 40-year management concession."

Stone, Weisbrot and Ali have written a letter to the Times responding to the review. They point out that even some of the more mundane criticisms of the film are wrong:

Accusing the film of "misinformation," Rohter writes that "a flight from Caracas to La Paz, Bolivia, flies mostly over the Amazon, not the Andes. . .."  But the narration does not say that the flight is "mostly" over the Andes, just that it flies over the Andes, which is true.

But they also point out that Rohter's fixation on the shootings and coup might be explained by the fact that Rohter's reporting on those subjects was so problematic:

Rohter should have disclosed his own conflict of interest in this review. The film criticizes the New York Times for its editorial board’s endorsement of the military coup of April 11, 2002 against the democratically elected government of Venezuela, which was embarrassing to the Times. Moreover, Rohter himself wrote an article on April 12 that went even further than the Times' endorsement of the coup:

"Neither the overthrow of Mr. Chavez, a former army colonel, nor of Mr. Mahuad two years ago can be classified as a conventional Latin American military coup. The armed forces did not actually take power on Thursday. It was the ousted president's supporters who appear to have been responsible for deaths that numbered barely 12 rather than hundreds or thousands, and political rights and guarantees were restored rather than suspended." – Larry Rohter, New York Times, April 12, 2002

These allegations that the coup was not a coup--not only by Rohter--prompted a rebuttal by Rohter's colleague at the New York Times, Tim Weiner, who wrote a Sunday Week in Review piece two days later entitled "A Coup by Any Other Name" (New York Times, 4/14/02).

South of the Border aims to give viewers a glimpse of Latin American politics that could serve as as antidote to the one-sided, propagandistic treatment in the corporate media. Reviews like Rohter's only remind us of this fact.

Mark Weisbrot had a good column in the London Guardian (10/23/09) about the highly circumscribed "debate" over the Afghanistan War (FAIR Action Alert, 8/25/09). He breaks down the lineup of a recent Meet the Press (10/11/09):

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former Army general and drug czar (under President Clinton) turned defense industry lobbyist. In a news article on McCaffrey entitled "One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex," the New York Times reported that McCaffrey had "earned at least $500,000 from his work for Veritas Capital, a private equity firm in New York that has grown into a defense industry powerhouse by buying contractors whose profits soared from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." McCaffrey has appeared on NBC more than 1,000 times since 9/11/2001.

Retired Gen. Richard Meyers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Bush (2002-05). He is currently on the Board of Directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation, one of the largest military contractors in the world, and also of United Technologies Corporation, another large military contractor.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, Republican from South Carolina, a pro-war spokesperson who is one of the most regular guests on the Sunday talkshows.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, was apparently intended to represent the "other side" of the debate. Here is what he said: "Clearly we should keep the number of forces that we have.  No one's talking about removing forces."

"No one," in the above sentence refers to the American people, whom Levin understandably sees as nobody in the eyes of the U.S. media and political leaders. According to the latest (September 24) NYT/CBS News poll, 32 percent of those polled wanted U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within one year or right now. That was the largest group. Another 24 percent wants the troops "removed within one to two years." For comparison, the leadership of the Taliban is willing to grant foreign troops 18 months to get out of their country.

In other words, a majority of 56 percent of Americans wants U.S. troops out of Afghanistan about as soon as is practically feasible or even sooner. Yet Meet the Press--a mainstream network news talkshow since 1947--does not see fit to find one person to represent that point of view. The other major TV and radio talkshows that the right also labels "liberal" in the United States make similar choices almost every day.

When asked whether the U.S. should set a timeline for withdrawal, Levin answered "no."

This phenomenon of the non-debate is not confined to broadcast journalism; see recent FAIR Blog posts on fake Afghanistan debates in Time magazine (10/2/09), USA Today (9/17/09) and the Washington Post (9/01/09, 8/17/09).

Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras, though not to office.  Unfortunately, press accounts still manage to mangle the story behind his ouster, relying on those who supported the coup to explain what happened. In today's New York Times (9/22/09):

At the time of his removal, Mr. Zelaya was planning a nonbinding referendum that his opponents said would have been the first step toward allowing him to run for another term in office, which is forbidden under the Honduran constitution. Mr. Zelaya has denied any attempt to run for re-election.

An Associated Press report appearing in today's USA Today (9/22/09) was much worse:

The legislature ousted Zelaya after he formed an alliance with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and tried to alter the nation's constitution. Zelaya was arrested on orders of the Supreme Court on charges of treason for ignoring court orders against holding a referendum to extend his term. The Honduran Constitution forbids a president from trying to obtain another term in office.

This is inaccurate, not to mention strange (ousted for a Chavez "alliance"?).  As economist Mark Weisbrot put it shortly after the coup (7/8/09), these pro-coup arguments makes no sense--and the media should say so. By the way, the example he cites is also from the New York Times....

Unfortunately much of the major media's reporting has aided this effort by reporting such statements as "Critics feared he intended to extend his rule past January, when he would have been required to step down."

In fact, there was no way for Zelaya to "extend his rule" even if the referendum had been held and passed, and even if he had then gone on to win a binding referendum on the November ballot. The June 28 referendum was nothing more than a non-binding poll of the electorate, asking whether the voters wanted to place a binding referendum on the November ballot to approve a redrafting of the country's constitution. If it had passed, and if the November referendum had been held (which was not very likely) and also passed, the same ballot would have elected a new president and Zelaya would have stepped down in January. So, the belief that Zelaya was fighting to extend his term in office has no factual basis -- although most people who follow this story in the press seem to believe it. The most that could be said is that if a new constitution were eventually approved, Zelaya might have been able to run for a second term at some future date.

Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research had one of the most informative pieces I've seen on the Iranian election, published on WashingtonPost.com (6/26/09). Weisbrot examines the actual Iranian vote-counting procedures, and concludes that in Iran, "large-scale fraud is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without creating an extensive trail of evidence."

Since votes are supposed to be counted at individual polling places in the presence of 14-18 witnesses, Weisbrot points out that "if this election was stolen, there must be tens of thousands of witnesses--or perhaps hundreds of thousands--to the theft. Yet there are no media accounts of interviews with such witnesses."

But Weisbrot would no doubt acknowledge that the absence of such interviews is not definitive proof that fraud did not occur, because his column is as much about the failure of the U.S. media system as it is about the Iranian political system. Here's his account of looking into the actual mechanics of the vote:

After searching through thousands of news articles without finding any substantive information on the electoral process, I contacted Seyed Mohammad Marandi, who heads the North American Studies department at the University of Tehran. He described the electoral procedures to me, and together we interviewed, by phone, Sayed Moujtaba Davoodi, a poll worker who participated in the June 12 election in region 13 (of 22 regions) in Tehran. Mr. Daboodi has worked in elections for the past 16 years. The following is from their description of the procedures.

The Iranian election is a major foreign-policy story for the U.S. corporate media, and coverage has centered on the question of electoral fraud. Yet Weisbrot, a diligent researcher, found no news account that answered the most basic questions about how the Iranian vote was actually supposed to be conducted.

The main point of having a free press is to protect other freedoms, the right to free and fair elections prominently among them. If this is how they go about investigating claims of vote fraud, though, how can we hope that corporate media will ever be an effective guardian of voting rights when they're threatened here at home?