1. Ernesto L. | 07.14.09

(1) First of all, do you journalists check your sources right before you publish? It seems not.

(2) It’s like totally the wrong question, it should be: “Do you agree, there are sensible enough reasons behind the coup d’etat, as it happened, of Zelaya, yes or no ?”

people would have to give a clear answer.

(3)Do not only poll in Tegucigalpa, but also the countryside.

2. Tobias | 07.14.09

Many people have the Gallup poll already. Bloggings by Boz already explained what happened.

VOA has an audio where Carlos Denton, presidente of CID-Gallup, clearly says what the poll says. This was published in the VOA Spanish website on July 9th. CSM published the wrong number on July 11 (the WSJ on July 10th, the WPost and Reuters on July 9th), basically taking it from La Prensa without any double-checking. If you google “Gallup Honduras” in Google News, the VOA link comes up. As Naiman makes it clear, it was VOA that got the number right first (although Jorge Ramos reported the right numbers a few hours later). The NYT got it right the next day. AP got it wrong but quickly fixed it. The rest got it wrong. Why? They just trusted La Prensa, who is the main culprit in manipulating the numbers. The rest (Reuters, CSM, WP, etc) were just lazy.

3. Roger Milbrandt | 07.14.09

Your explanation for the incompleteness of CSM’s initial report on the Honduran poll sounds convincing enough and like most people I am willing to allow for honest human error. Still, it is bothersome that three or four major US newspapers made the same error. A few days after this, two left-wing opponents of the coup, Iván Bados and Ramón García, were murdered. To date, I have not seen any mention of these murders (assassinations?) in any mainline US media. Can you imagine how these media would respond if two opponents of Hugo Chavez were murdered, in however mysterious circumstances? So, I find myself in agreement with those who say the US media does not fairly reflect the perspective of the various pro-Zelaya forces in Honduras.

4. Robert Naiman | 07.14.09

I give Sara Miller Llana credit for responding and linking to the criticism and to good information. But demerits to the CSM for not linking the original article to this post - the original article still stands without any link to this new information, or any other indication that there might be something inaccurate or misleading about it - and demerits to Sara Miller Llana for conveniently sliding over some key points in her response.

Where did the CSM get its information in the first place? It wasn’t from CID-Gallup, as her post makes clear. Presumably, the CSM got it from La Prensa - or from someone else who got it from La Prensa - without
checking with CID-Gallup, even though La Prensa is known to be a
pro-coup newspaper, which has a history of publishing bad information,
even though it was clearly possible to get other information, since
the NYT, AP, and VOA did. Note that the CSM piece is dated July 11,
the VOA piece July 9, the NYT piece July 10, and the AP piece July 11.

Journalists aren’t supposed to rely solely on a secondary source in this way,
even if the secondary source isn’t suspect - which it was in this case.
They’re supposed to independently confirm.

Here’s what the CSM published on July 11:

“Although Zelaya supporters have marched daily since his ouster, a
CID-Gallup poll published Thursday showed that 41 percent of Hondurans
found his ouster justifiable, compared to 28 percent who oppose the
coup.”

Note the switch. The actual question, according to the blog source linked here, was whether Zelaya’s actions justified his removal from office.

If the CSM had written:

“Although Zelaya supporters have marched daily since his ouster, a
CID-Gallup poll published Thursday showed that 41 percent of Hondurans
found his ouster justifiable, compared to 28 percent who disagreed
that his ouster was justifiable.”

there would be a case for the argument offered here, although the paragraph would still have been highly misleading, since in the context of the paragraph the typical reader would have understood the question in the context of the actual events, rather than the hypothetical question (mere “removal from office” is not what took place.) But the CSM used the word coup, and that clearly describes the actual events that took place, which were opposed by 46%, not 28%. So the CSM’s current justification of its earlier report is simply not accurate. Where did the phrase “oppose the coup” in the July 11 CSM piece come from? Not from CID-Gallup.

I didn’t accuse the CSM of publishing inaccurate figures “for ideological gain” - perhaps someone else did. I wrote: “perhaps the result was not counterintuitive for these press outlets, and that may suggest a deeper problem - the U.S. press is out of touch with the majority of the population in Honduras, and therefore credulous to results which misreport Honduran public opinion as being much more similar than it is to the opinions of Honduran elites.” Arguably, “U.S. press” was too broad a brush, since the NYT got it right. Indeed, Ginger Thompson of the New York Times had different information, and published a day earlier. How did she get it?

5. cliffyworld | 07.14.09

For the first time in Latin America, the people revolted without bloodshed and violence against a constitutional and democratically elected President for violating laws in their country. For more on this topic read the article titled “Obama Manifesto” posted at http://www.cliffyworld.com

6. Doug Lawrence | 07.15.09

I am having a very difficult time with the coverage of theese events. World leaders call this a coup and condemn it. Others have laid out a very believable series of events that show Honduran law was followed, and when the president broke the law despite repeated warnings and orders from the supreme court, he was removed at the direction of a lawful court order, and an interim government was chosen based on existing constitutional procedure. What I haven’t seen in any mainstream media article is an answer to the most basic questions I have. Did Zelaya break the law? Was the constituition followed? If the answer is yes, yes, then where are the outrage and “coup” acusations coming from? If the removal was the work of one person, or group working outside the law, who are they? The lack of detail in reporting on this case makes me suspicious. Journalism is not always getting peoples reaction to things, sometimes you must try to explain what happened.

7. No Wonder | 07.16.09

This just exposes the sorry state the media and journalism are in, again. What is it for a journalism when mainstream media have to be corrected by bloggers? And some people are wondering why newspapers are going bankrupt. If they were not reporting biased propaganda either willfully or not, people wouldn’t turn to bloggers who are often much more reliable (if you can pick and choose), the mainstream media are fulfilling the role of “repeaters” instead. No fact-check, no original research, no investigation, they just take whatever they’re fed and “report” it. All so called “journalists” doing this should wake up and be ashamed of themselves, you have great responsibility to the public. It’s highly immoral to publish information without any honest fact-check, you can cause much damage. Realize that!

At least there is effort to correct it, in some outlets anyway …

8. @Doug | 07.16.09

Doug, if you want more sober outlook on the evens that transpired I recommend you explore these sites, there are some real investigative journalists:

http://www.chavezcode.com/
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

9. Branwen | 07.16.09

yes Zelaya broke the law and violated the constitution article 239, then he fired the army cheif also against the law article 279, only the congress can with a majority vote fire the army cheif, he had ballots sent in from Venezuela to disperse amongst the people to change the constitution to end presedential term limits which results in automatic expultion from his duties according to the language of article 239, after many warnings he would not step down, so the congress and supreme court ordered his arrest, the army was used in this case suported by article 272 & 313, their are many other things hes done as well, the gatherings in favor of the ouster/government was 3 times the size as the zelaya protests. hundreds of witnesses said that many of the zelaya protesters were paid, Chavez the krook thug sent Zelaya millions of dollars. Honduras is being thrown under the bus.

10. Corazon | 07.18.09

Please read

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ratliff18-2009jul18,0,5175223.story