Comments on: Guatemala: News bias, again

By: soblessed

soblessed — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:17:37 +0000

"while facts are cherry-picked to fit. "

This pretty much sums up for me the anti-adoption "facts", anyway.

You're right, though, S. It is SHAMEFUL to change a headline like that; even more so since there was not public acknowldegement or apology. Ugh. Raggy.....

By: Sandra Hanks Benoiton

Sandra Hanks Benoiton — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:52:43 +0000

Exactly! And unfortunately typical of this sort of ‘reporting’. The personal anti-adoption agenda of the reporter shines through, while facts are cherry-picked to fit.

By: Tiatere

Tiatere — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:31:36 +0000

Well that is interesting indeed. The coverage in general has been sensationalized, saying the children didn’t have papers when in fact that has not been proven. If it were a U.S. case & story, the articles would have had to say “allegedly.”

By: Sandra Hanks Benoiton

Sandra Hanks Benoiton — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:13:32 +0000

This is very, very interesting.

The headline most definately was “US child-snatchers plague Guatemala” when I wrote this blog, as can be proved by Googling that headling and seeing how many references there are that quote it directly and news aggregators that have it as the story from yesterday’s Telegraph, ‘reddit’, for example: http://reddit.com/info/2l0cn/comments

Obviously, the Telegraph CHANGED THE HEADLINE after the fact, and did so with no acknowledgement that they had done so.
SHAMEFUL!!!

Think they’re regretting publlishing such a pitiful piece of trash?

By: Tiatere

Tiatere — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:27:03 +0000

Just to note, the headline does not mention the U.S. The headline is, “Guatemala’s child-snatching plague.” There might or might not be such a plague, but there certainly are problems with the adoption system there. At the same time, what’s happening with Casa Quivira is not the way to address it. If that woman’s kidnapped child was indeed sold for adoption, it most likely was not through a sanctioned orphanage. My sympathies to the waiting parents, it sounds like a nightmare. –Theresa

By: JA

JA — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 19:43:07 +0000

I just wrote a long letter to the address Sandra provided! The banana thing really got me going, so I wrote this:
“How absolutely horrible to state that babies are “just below bananas”. Wow. Maybe that’s why Mr. Sherwell expresses no concern about the approximately 13,000 babies who DIE every year in Guatemala due to lack of good nutrition, little to no medical care, etc. – Mr. Sherwell apparently feels that Guatemalan children rate no higher than bananas on his scale.”
I’m now going to write a thank you letter to myfoxstl.com (news station), who have been running thoughtful, sensitive stories on the CQ situation. (You can search for “adoption” on their site to find the stories.)

By: Sandra Hanks Benoiton

Sandra Hanks Benoiton — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 18:24:52 +0000

Rah, Rah, MamaS!

Maybe their own bad press is part of the motivation for this.

A PR firm would be a plus, JA! Let's see what we can get going in the meantime. Letters, letters and more letters to the Sunday Telegraph and anyone else who puts out pap like this!

By: MamaS

MamaS — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 18:02:45 +0000

I wrote an e-mail and suggested that a mother in the UK had more to fear from Social Services than a Guatemalan mother had to fear from American kidnappers. Let them pull some weeds in their own yard first!

By: JA

JA — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:09:49 +0000

Ugh! That article is disgusting. I can’t believe that loser journalist compared babies to BANANAS as an “export”!! How does he sleep at night?
I want to hire a PR firm to represent adoptive families! This article and all the others out here are such unfair slander.

By: Chromesthesia

Chromesthesia — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:39:19 +0000

I wish they would not write articles like that
Folks are already biased against international adoption enough as it is and they really do not know much about it.
It’s deeply depressing that they overlook stories of poverty, pain and having no choice but to make this painful decision in favour of being exploitative.