Washington Post (3/25/24)

This week on CounterSpin: US corporate media’s story about Haiti is familiar. Haiti, according to various recent reports, has “whipped from one calamity to another.” The country is a “cataclysm of hunger and terror,” “teetering on the brink of collapse,” “spiraling deeper into chaos” or else “descending into gang-fueled anarchistic chaos.” It’s “become a dangerously rudderless country.” According to one Florida paper’s editorial: “Haiti’s unrest” is now “becoming our problem,” as Floridians and the US “struggle to help people in Haiti, although history suggests there are no answers.”

Or, well, there is one answer: The Washington Post made space for a former ambassador to explain that 20 years ago in Haiti, “the worst outcomes were avoided through decisive American intervention. Today’s crisis might require it as well.”

At this point, the Austin American-Statesman’s “Haiti Cannibalism Claims Unfounded” might pass for refreshing.

AP had a piece that actually talked to Haitians amid what is indeed a deep and deepening crisis. A grandmother told the wire service, “We’re living day-by-day and hoping that something will change.”

We talk about what has to change—including, importantly, Western media presentations that ignore or erase even recent history—with Chris Bernadel, from the Black Alliance for Peace‘s Haiti/Americas Team and Haitian grassroots group Moleghaf.

Transcript: ‘Interventions Laid the Groundwork for the Crisis in Haiti Today’

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Elon Musk vs. Brazil.