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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: Is East Timor Really "Out of Control"? A front-page New York Times article about the precarious situation in East Timor (9/12/99) began by reporting that Indonesian "Gen. Wiranto, conceded Saturday that he had lost control of elements of his military" that were operating on the island. The article's headline, "Jakarta Concedes a Loss ofControl," echoed this view. The assertion that Wiranto--Indonesia's top commander--was unable to control the violence in East Timor went unquestioned in the first two-thirds of the article. Then, in the article's twenty-ninth paragraph, an unnamed official travelling with the visiting U.N. delegation in East Timor flatly contested this account: "I don't see any reason to think they are having difficulties controlling the situation. Look at today and look at election day when everything was brought under control with the snap of a finger. This is such a coordinated and planned campaign--evacuating towns, assassinating moderate leaders, moving huge numbers of people into forced exile-that it could only have comefrom the top." This approach is typical of the mainstream media's recent coverage of the East Timor crisis. NBC News introduced its September 14 coverage of East Timor with a large logo reading "Out of Control"--even as anchor Tom Brokaw told viewers that "government-backed militias are reportedly carrying out systematic assassinations of those who support independence for thatprovince." A September 14 article in the Washington Post reported that an American general recently told Wiranto that the "United States expected Indonesian forces to reestablish control in East Timor." The Post presented without challenging the view that the Indonesian command was unable to stop theviolence. To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1903 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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