Who is playing politics?

• Position: Coverage of Haiti in US media - Editorial

When it comes to Haiti, the U.S. media are picking up where the CIA left off. Before Jean-Bertrand Aristide was restored to power in 1994. the CIA was worried that he was too leftwing and tried to discredit him by circulating all sorts of vicious rumors about his supposed mental instability.

Now The New York Times, The Washington Post, A.P., and U.S. News & World Report are getting into the act themselves. In mid-June they all ran articles depicting Aristide as a conniving demagogue who advocates foolish policies.

Here's the lead of the A.P. story, which ran in the Post, and in newspapers around the country: "He's back, and he's rallying his militants by blaming U.S. imperialism for the woes of Haiti's poor." The piece went on to note that he's "frustrating U.S. aid plans."

All the articles made those aid plans out to be benign and sensible. In fact, they jeopardize Haiti's sovereignty and the well-being of Haiti's majority. The United States, along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is insisting that the Haitian government sell off its state enterprises to multinationals, lay off thousands of Haitian workers, and lift subsidies on such basic items as food. Aristide has good reason to oppose such measures.

But his reasoning was almost impossible to figure out from reading the mainstream media. Instead, the articles portrayed Aristide's stance as nonsensical and injurious to the people of Haiti. U.S. News & World Report wrote: "Aristide's blocking of reform assures that none of the additional aid money will flow to Haiti -- a country that already depends on foreign aid for 70 percent of its budget."

By the way, U.S. News & World Report titled its piece Playing Politics with Foreign Aid. But it didn't acknowledge that the United States was playing politics. Instead, it suggested that only Aristide...