N&O propaganda and Chronicle reporting

Yesterday, I posted on The Raleigh News & Observer’s Jan. 16 front page story, Fiery Belafonte focuses on injustice, which concerned Sunday's Dr. King commemoration event at Duke University Chapel. The principal speaker was singer and activist Harry Belafonte. My post explained why The N&O's story is an anti-American and Bush-bashing propaganda piece.

I wish when I wrote that post I had a copy of the story of the event that ran in the Duke student newspaper, The Chronicle. I could have made my point about N&O propaganda by comparing The Chronicle and N&O stories.

Well, better late than never. Here goes. (N&O portions are in bold; Chronicle portions in italics.)

First, the headlines –

N&O - Fiery Belafonte focuses on injustice

Chronicle - Activist lauds King, decries Bush

Describing Belafonte -

N&O - He's an “(e)entertainer and human-rights activist.”

Chronicle - He's a “controversial musician, actor and activist”

Both stories are similar in their summaries and quotes of Belafonte’s remarks about President Bush being a "terrorist," the war in Iraq, and the moral equivalence between the 9/11 attackers and American policies.

But there are differences in how the stories report the circumstance in which Belafonte called the President "the greatest terrorist in the world."

N&O - Standing next to Hugo Chavez, that country's socialist leader, Belafonte called Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world."

Chronicle - Belafonte previously had called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world” during a Jan. 8 speech in Venezuela, setting off a firestorm of criticism.

About Belafonte's long history of support for leftist tyrants -

No - Silence

Chronicle - A student is quoted: “Belafonte claims to be a champion of human rights, yet he embraces tyrants, for example, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, who often brutally deny their citizens of the most basic human rights”

About racist remarks Belafonte has made about former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -

Both stories are silent.

Did anyone disagree with anything Belafonte said?

N&O - No mention that anyone disagreed with anything Belafonte said.

Chronicle - “But not everyone agreed.”

N&O - No mention that tens of millions of Americans find Belafonte's attacks on the President wrong, reckless, and perhaps a threat to his safety.

Chronicle - Although most of the audience expressed agreement with Belafonte’s views, (a conservative student leader) said the crowd was not a true representation of Americans.

“Most Americans would not cheer when George W. Bush, their President, is compared to the 9/11 hijackers and Operation Iraqi Freedom is compared to hijacking a jet and flying it into a building,” he said.You'll see more differences if you read both The Chronicle and N&O stories.

I think you'll agree The N&O's story is anti-American and Bush-bashing propaganda. If you're not sure about that, please take another look my post, Belafonte and The Raleigh N & O's propaganda. It has much more analysis and discussion of The N&O's "Fiery Belafonte" piece than I've provided here.

You can read The Chronicle story here; The N&O story is here.