Page 55 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

For instance, international newsmen estimated that a crowd of some 200,000
people had gathered for the ADO rally on May 3. Yet, the Channel 4 anchorman
claimed that it only attracted 15,000 people.
What were the reasons for this evident partiality, this absolute ignorance of
the media’s duty to report and to steer clear of manipulation and lies? The reasons are
simple: the majority stockholders of Channel 2 are General Staff members. Channel
4, on the other hand, belongs to relatives of the PALA chairman (the same party that
received that celebrated 15,000 gallons of gasoline). Of course, the military and
businessmen involved wanted Barletta to win and saw to it that no stone was left
unturned. The end justifies the means.
Channel 13, on the other hand, displayed greater objectivity (no big feat
considering its rival's partiality). It occasionally included ADO in its news programs.
This notwithstanding, it supported Barletta in many other ways. For instance, the
station ran a weekly show in which presidential candidates would answer questions
from a panel of journalists. The rub was in the fact that the panel did not include any
opposition newsman. All in all, Channel 13 supported Barletta but not as obviously and
unabashedly as the previous two.
Panama’s television industry has two more channels. However, neither
Channel 11 nor Channel 5 had any major impact on the campaign as their signals are
only received in the capital. Moreover, Channel 11 is an education channel (it belongs
to the National University) and Channel 5, which began broadcasting only recently,
does not have a regular newscast and is watched by relatively few people. However,
by closing their doors to the opposition, they too contributed to Barletta’s campaign.

As far as political commercials were concerned, the national printed press
devoted considerable attention to the policy adopted by all four commercial channels.
Their agreement stipulated that all paid political announcements would be broadcast
provided they were received by the station 48 hours ahead of airing time. This
agreement, however, was ignored by its signatories at different points of the electoral
process. The bishops referred to this betrayal of their pledge in point 16 of their
declaration on the Electoral Process: “There have been abuses in the media; a failure
to observe the rules that the media themselves established”. And yet, at a press
conference held at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International
Studies, in Washington, D.C., Fernando Eleta A., Chairman of the Panamanian
Broadcasting Corporation (TV 4), assured his audience that the agreement among the
broadcasters was working like a charm and that candidates were receiving equal and
17
fair treatment from television stations.

17
“One lady in the group (about 12 of us) identified herself as an American citizen. She was
concerned, however, because her family was in Panama, and she knows that television coverage of the
elections is not being fair. Dr. E. (Fernando Eleta A.) gave her a copy of the agreement among the
stations on how they were to ensure fair and adequate coverage to all candidates. He assured her that