Burma coverage teaches us Goebbels' Corollary

I could go on with examples. I will. Major General Hla Htay Win, who got downgraded to a Major in many MSM reports, has dropped out of the news since Oct. 2.

It is strange that journalists aren’t pursuing him more, since he was in charge of security in parts of Rangoon; was fired for being too soft on the protestors and, get this, defected to Thailand and announced his intention to seek asylum in Norway. Oh, and he also mentioned that thousands of bodies were already buried in the jungle.

Of course, his claim hasn’t been “confirmed” and I doubt it ever will be. Der Speigel’s correspondent wrote

Every Burmese whose name appears in the international media has to fear for his life. Even foreigners living in the country are opting for silence, for fear of persecution. But the rumors and stories circulating in the city paint a horrible picture. It’s clear that Yangon has done away with almost all of its monks.

Several sources are now reporting estimates of 6000 detentions, and Time asks, Where Are Burma’s Monks?, but still not so much about crematorium smoke. The public doesn’t like to face death of people it feels empathy for.

But why isn’t Hla Htay Win’s sensational, if unconfirmable, inside information is not simply objectively explained in a sentence or two in the background of many related news stories on Burma. After all, he is the ultimate source in a way. Instead of writing:

...why don’t the journalists write:

Here is some other Burma news you maybe hadn't heard. It was covered in the Bangkok Post and on the AP wire, but apparently news editors around the world had had their fill of Burma stories. It was on the AP wire too:

Myanmar's national airline announced Friday it was halting most of its flights amid a dramatic downturn in visitors. Myanmar Airways International has suspended flights to Thailand and Malaysia after its insurer halted coverage «due to the recent crisis in Myanmar,» the airline said in a statement. It did not name the insurance company.

The story was reprinted in just a few newspapers according to my Googling. (I only found: Jakarta Post, I.H.T., and USA Today) despite its being laden with copious amounts of shocking "background information" like:

«They beat everyone, including women and girls,» the dissident group quoted an unidentified female detainee as saying.
«I heard people shouting and crying from the interrogation room and then, I saw an army medical surgeon carrying people away,» the woman said. The group said she was held at the Government Technical Institute detention center in Yangon for five days following the crackdown.

DVB, which has supplied reliable information in the past, also reported that a 48-year-old detainee, U Than Aung, died Sept. 30 at a detention center in Yangon. He was arrested on Sept. 27, beaten in custody which left him with severe internal injuries, and died when he was not given immediate medical attention, the group said, citing sources close to the institute.

There was no way to independently confirm the reports attributed to freed prisoners. In an interview with The Associated Press, another released prisoner, Zaw Myint, 45, said he was arrested Sept. 26 on a Yangon street after a soldier bashed his face with the butt of his gun, leaving a bloody gash across his cheek.

Zaw Myint said he was denied treatment for three days then stitched up by a doctor at Yangon's notorious Insein prison, after the physician had treated several other wounded prisoners.

«He used the same needle to treat all patients. And I saw him give injections to wounded people using the same syringe,» said Zaw Myint, who was released after a week in custody. He said was «extremely worried» about having contracted HIV as a result of the treatment. Rights groups say Myanmar's prisons have soaring rates of HIV-AIDS.

If the media, which is so often accused of being sensationalist, politely declines to report the only available eye-witness accounts of the repression happening in Burma right now, we have a duty as citizens to call for an investigation into the reasons why. This goes beyond Al Jazeera being the only network with a video journalist brave enough to do his job. The important stories are there on the Net, but they are being blatently downplayed. If the flagship airline of any other country of similar size stopped operating, it would probably get wider coverage than this.

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