The Massacre in El MozoteSynopsis Two relatively inexperienced reporters, Raymond Bonner of the New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post, toured rebel-controlled areas of Morazán province in 1982 during the Salvadoran Civil War. The reporters, who traveled separately a few days apart, were taken to a site that rebels and civilians described as the scene of a massacre of civilians by U.S.-trained elite soldiers of the Salvadoran Army. The front-page reports in the Times and the Post embarrassed an Administration that was trying to prop up the Salvadoran regime. U.S. government officials cast doubt on the stories and tried to discredit the journalists. The New York Times removed Bonner from Central America seven months later, bringing him to New York for more training. The Washington Post promoted Guillermoprieto to a staff position and assigned her to cover Washington suburban areas. Guillermoprieto felt as if she were continually under suspicion and left in two years. This case study probes two central issues:
If time allows, another issue worth exploring is how journalists should respond to attacks from the U.S. government and other critics. Teaching Plan In this case, there is an epilogue—a UN Truth Commission report that found the massacre to be even worse than reported. The reporters and their newspapers were right. We think it is an essential part of the case, but you should decide the right moment to have the students read it. You may want to hold it until the end of class or until students have given a first assessment of the case. It does seem to work well to let the students think through what they would have done without knowing whether in the end the story was accurate. Either way, the epilogue will probably influence their thinking. Class Discussion In teaching this case, you may find it useful to use role-play methods. Have students take the various roles of Bonner, Guillermoprieto, the editors, the US government, and lead them through a debate of the issues. Pose questions to each of them in their various roles and then have them question each other. We think you will find that once you have helped define the questions, the discussion will get pretty heated on it's own. But you will still need to help move it along by occasionally interjecting a new question or reminding students of certain facts. Whatever method you choose, the following are the questions and issues that should somehow be addressed. Covering a Controversial Story Question 1: Did Bonner and Guillermoprieto have enough trustworthy information to write the story as they did? In view of the limitations, did Bonner and Guillermoprieto overstate the magnitude of the massacre? Should they have moderated their accounts? [Note: You might call on one student to be Bonner and press the student to defend his or her work. Challenge the sourcing, the methods used, the time taken to write, etc.] ANALYSIS: In a sense, the evidence about the perpetrators and the circumstances of the killings was somewhat limited. Rufina Amaya told the reporters that she was the only survivor of the killings in El Mozote. Two other Salvadorans said they were eyewitnesses in other decimated villages. But all the others interviewed—villagers, rebel soldiers, the mysterious American Joe David Sanderson—were not eyewitnesses. Yet both Bonner and Guillermoprieto amassed ample evidence that a massacre of civilians had taken place in Morazán province. They came upon numerous bodies of women and children and widespread destruction. War correspondents, trying to sift the truth out of conflicting communiqués from both sides, often put together stories with less evidence and eyewitness information than Bonner and Guillermoprieto had. When evidence is limited, a reporter can often seek the viewpoint of other sources—professors, diplomats, humanitarian aid workers—before reaching a conclusion. In this case, however, the reporters knew that no outsider had seen as much as they had. Since almost all victims were dead, the only witnesses who could give a more coherent account of what had happened would be the perpetrators. But the Salvadoran army denied that any massacre had taken place. The reporters had to reach conclusions on their own. There were no more objective judges of what happened than themselves. In a situation like this, a reporter has to depend on journalistic instinct, on an inner feeling of what makes sense and what does not. It does not take very long for a good reporter to tell whether a peasant woman like Rufina Amaya is telling a credible story or just making things up at the behest of others. This is especially true when the witnesses are interviewed out of earshot of authorities. Bonner and Guillermoprieto interviewed Amaya and others without the presence of rebel soldiers. (Later, the American diplomats would interview civilian refugees mainly in the presence of Salvadoran soldiers; it is not surprising that the diplomats got no corroboration that a massacre had taken place.) Staging is not always that easy to spot, but it is usually easier than a student might expect. In the El Mozote case, it was obvious to the reporters that nothing was staged. A massacre had certainly taken place. Question 2: Guillermoprieto says the monstrosity of the massacre was so great she wanted everyone in Washington to take notice. Is that the natural reaction of a journalist who has come upon an unspeakable and terrible crime against humanity? Or did she overstep the ethical boundaries of objective journalism by feeling this way? Did her story reflect these feelings? ANALYSIS: Some reporters have so keen a sense of objectivity that they do not even vote in elections. But reporters do not have to be zombies to produce objective work. A massacre of women and children is not a normal circumstance of war. Under international law, it is a crime against humanity. There is nothing wrong in being sickened and outraged by the sight. Nor is it abnormal for a writer to want everyone in power to read the story. The emotion and fury inside a reporter could help produce a powerful story—provided that the inner rage of the reporter does not become obvious and bog down the narrative with whining pleas and images. As published, both the Bonner and Guillermoprieto stories read like matter of fact accounts. Guillermoprieto's anger does not get in the way of the narrative. Budding foreign correspondents ought to consult Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), a book edited by two experienced journalists, Roy Gutman and David Rieff. The book attempts to lay down the rules of war so that reporters coming upon a terrible calamity like El Mozote or ethnic cleansing in Bosnia know whether it is a byproduct of war or a crime of war. Question 3: Since both reporters knew that the U.S. government supported the Salvadoran government, they should have expected the Administration to attempt to discredit news stories that put the Salvadoran army in a bad light. Should reporters bear this kind of pressure in mind when writing a controversial story? Or is it a breach of journalistic ethics to worry about the reaction of a government? [Again, there could be some role-play here.] ANALYSIS: In an ideal journalistic world, a reporter would cover a massacre like that of El Mozote much like covering the killings of civilians in Sierra Leone or the southern Sudan. A horror story is a horror story, no matter what the circumstances. But, in the real world, an American foreign correspondent must take more care than usual when the story contradicts official U.S. policy. Rather than acknowledge that their policy is wrong, U.S. officials, speaking with the mantle of authority, will try to discredit the story and the reporter. In the El Mozote case, the reporters seemed to have amassed every available bit of information that a massacre had taken place. The reporters were also careful not to blame the government troops but to allow survivors to make such accusations. Both stories also featured denials from Salvadoran government sources. In Guillermoprieto's story this denial was obviously obtained by the foreign desk from the Salvadoran ambassador in Washington. Guillermoprieto, who wrote her story hurriedly under trying circumstances, had the right to assume that her foreign desk would insert such a denial. Question 4: Unlike Guillermoprieto, Bonner did not believe the massacre story was so important that it had to be written before he wrote about the other findings of his trip. Was this an error of journalistic judgment? ANALYSIS: In retrospective, it is obvious that the massacre story was important enough to deserve Bonner's immediate attention. But it is not always easy for a reporter to make such a judgment. When reporters complete a rare trip to a remote part of the world, they often see the need to write a series of articles. The series as a whole becomes more important in their minds than any individual story. They may even resist the urge to barrel out a single story for immediate attention, fearing that the loss of that story will hurt the series. Before sitting down to write a series, foreign correspondents need to discuss the stories with an experienced editor on the foreign desk. The editor usually has a clearer idea of the possible impact of the stories. Possible activities As a research project, several students could read the other stories in the Bonner series in the New York Times to try to understand why other material loomed larger in his mind than the massacre. Editing A Controversial Story & Communicating with your Reporters Question 1: Editors at both the New York Times and the Washington Post refrained from publishing the stories until they had a chance to discuss the contents with the reporters. This could have led to one of the papers being scooped and, in fact, the Post was alone with the story for one edition. Was the decision to delay a wise journalistic move? Does it raise questions about the assignment of Bonner and Guillermoprieto in the first place? If the editors had enough confidence to let them enter rebel territory, shouldn't they have had enough confidence to publish the stories without waiting? ANALYSIS: It is possible that if Bonner and Guillermoprieto were experienced foreign correspondents, their editors would not have felt the need to question them about the evidence for their stories. An editor, after all, should feel trust in the foreign correspondent. These young reporters, however, had obviously not yet built up the necessary trust. In any case, a foreign editor, should he or she feel the slightest uneasiness about a story, has the right and, in fact, the obligation to hold up the story until satisfied that the evidence justifies the conclusions. This is especially true when the story contradicts U.S. policy and the editor knows that there are knives out there ready to carve up the story, the reporter and the newspaper. In fact, too many editors cave to the pressure to be first and don't adequately verify the information. In many ways they are not living up to their jobs. Have students think of some of the recent stories that have proved wrong: Richard Jewell and the Olympic bombing, accusations in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the reporting of Bob Hope's death. Are there some local stories you could draw on? Question 2: The Washington Post story was edited to include a paragraph stating it was clear that the guerrillas invited journalists into Morazán to demonstrate their control of the region and to provide evidence of the alleged massacre. Was adding the insert a wise move? Was it an accurate statement? The rebels had invited the reporters to come even before the massacre. Their trip was postponed, in fact, only because of the Salvadoran Army offensive. Does the statement betray bias against the rebels? The reports of war correspondents do not usually include a paragraph stating that they are working under the authority of one army or another. That is simply assumed. When Washington Post reporters wrote stories from San Salvador, the capital, they did not say they were there under the authority of the Salvadoran government. Was Guillermoprieto's trip behind rebel lines so unusual that it required the explanatory paragraph? Question 3: The Bonner story was edited to include the disclaimer that it was not possible to determine how many died and who killed them. Yet Bonner still became the target of U.S. government and right-wing attacks. Was that disclaimer too weak? Should something more on the line of the Post paragraph been inserted? ANALYSIS: The Post paragraph and the Times disclaimer were gratuitous statements that were probably unnecessary from a journalistic point of view. Moreover, the Post paragraph may have overstated the case, for the editors really did not know the motivation of the guerrillas in allowing the reporters into the territory. Yet these inserts do not get into the way of the narratives, and they demonstrate to readers that the newspaper is making every effort to be fair while telling a controversial story. In trying to be fair, however, editors must be careful not to laden a story of this kind with so much denial that the reader fails to grasp the most important fact—that a terrible massacre did take place. Some editors follow a rule that every story must have two sides and that, for the sake of fairness, each side must be given equal space. But sometimes a story may have only one side or, more frequently, three or more sides. The Salvadoran government was denying that its troops committed any massacre, but it was not supplying any evidence to refute what the reporters had seen and heard. The Post and the Times therefore noted the denials but did not give them equal space. That was the right thing to do. As a result, the denials did not get in the way of the story of El Mozote. Possible activities: Advantages and Disadvantages of Inexperience Question 1: How did the experience or inexperience of each reporter affect his or her reporting? ANALYSIS: Bonner believes that his inexperience may have been an advantage. Knowing little about the impact of the story, he simply forged ahead and wrote it. Although Bonner was too inexperienced to realize the impact that his story would have in Washington, he now feels that his inexperience was probably an advantage. "I was not journalistically trained," he says. "If I did a good job…I sometimes wonder how much of that was because I did not have journalistic training. I think I'd be much more cautious in what I wrote today, and I'm not sure it would be better." The import of this thesis is that a more experienced correspondent might have been so cautious about an impending controversy that he or she would dilute the most gory details of the story. There are other possible pitfalls in experience. A veteran may become inured to terrible violence and treat a massacre like that of El Mozote as simply one more unfortunate episode in a lifetime of bloodshed. Some veteran reporters size up a situation so quickly that they sometimes feel the need to interview fewer witnesses and bystanders than a new correspondent might. In this case, such an approach would have lost valuable corroboration of what happened. Yet there are advantages as well to experience. An experienced reporter might have kept the potential controversy in mind throughout the visit to El Mozote. This concern might have pressured the reporter into more thorough questioning of the few witnesses and more examination of the bodies in hopes of buttressing the evidence. Most important, an experienced reporter, unlike Bonner, would probably have written the massacre story first and not risk being scooped by the Washington Post. There are thoughtful arguments on both sides of the issue of experience. You might also want to touch upon the lack of foreign knowledge in many of today's journalists, especially those in television. Many are now parachuted in to report the live story. The practice was begun as a way of controlling costs, but it greatly diminishes the chances of uncovering a story like El Mozote. Students should read the thesis of Bonner carefully and discuss whether they agree with him or not. Dealing With Attacks from the U.S. Government and Other Critics Question 1: Should Abe Rosenthal have been concerned that his transfer of Bonner would send the wrong signal to other foreign correspondents and the State Department? Or is that demanding too much of an editor? Is his responsibility only to his newspaper? If he believes that reassigning a reporter is best for both the reporter and the newspaper, does he not have the obligation to do so, no matter what the consequence for others? ANALYSIS: The reassignment of Bonner raises more questions than answers. A.M. Rosenthal is infuriated by any suggestion that he gave in to pressure from the U.S. government. He insists that the Times's refusal to kowtow to government pressure has been established for so long that it is foolish to think it would in this case. He asks rhetorically whether a newspaper that defied the government in the Pentagon Papers controversy would "become whores for Ray Bonner"? Do students know the issues of the Pentagon Papers case? In light of that case, does his argument—and his anger—make sense? It is obvious that Rosenthal's decision to remove Bonner was seen by others as a rebuke. Rosenthal denies that. If he did not intend a rebuke, did Rosenthal nevertheless have an obligation to refrain from sending a signal that would dishearten many foreign correspondents both on the New York Times and on other newspapers? It would be very hard to insist that an editor as powerful as Rosenthal assign or not assign a reporter somewhere because of the impact on other newspapers and their reporters. Rosenthal had the right and obligation to run his newspaper in line with his personal views and his newspaper's traditions. It is unfortunate that Rosenthal sent such a dampening signal to Times and other foreign correspondents. But he was entitled to run the newspaper he edited his way. Question 2: What about the ring of mistrust felt by Guillermoprieto? Are there institutional ways to handle a problem like this? Staff meetings? Memos from the editor? Or must a reporter learn to live with the mistrust and hope that it will dissipate after the reporter demonstrates competence in future stories? ANALYSIS: In the case of Guillermoprieto, the Post rewarded her with a staff position. But this involved reassignment as well. She was hired to start as a suburban reporter for the metro desk. This was in line with the Post policy of continually shifting reporters between Washington and overseas rather than trying to maintain an elite staff of permanent foreign correspondents.1 The Post editors feel that foreign correspondents need to come home from time to time to understand their newspaper and its readers better. The assignment of Guillermoprieto to suburban coverage contributed to her uneasiness at the Post, but it was done strictly in line with Post policy. Even though Guillermoprieto was rewarded for her work with a staff position, she also talks about the "ring of mistrust" around her because of the El Mozote stories. Jim Hoagland says he defended her in his dealings with other editors, but Guillermoprieto seems never to have been able to eliminate the ring. This is a difficult problem to deal with. Guillermoprieto had a powerful defender in Hoagland. It was unfortunate that this was not enough to get rid of the mistrust. She had little choice then but to try to live with it. [Note: This raises the additional question of whether the Post's policy is a good one.] Possible activities Once the class seems to have reached some kind of conclusion or at least has understanding of the disagreement, it is time to hand out the epilogue. Let students take five minutes to read it and then follow by asking if people feel any different now knowing the validity of the story. You might end with a class vote on the most heated issue. Epilogue Danger to Foreign Correspondents Question 1: Students should discuss whether the principals in the El Mozote coverage explored the issue of danger enough. Would the students have accepted the invitation from the guerrillas? When do the risks involved in getting the story outweigh the need to report the story? Did the reporters tell their desks enough about the risks involved? Did the editors ask enough questions about the risks? Should the final decision always be left to the correspondent on the scene? Once she knew that Bonner was going behind the lines to report on the rebels in Morazán, did Guillermoprieto have any other choice but to go? ANALYSIS: Many students and new journalists do not realize how dangerous foreign assignments have become. In a bygone age, reporters overseas regarded themselves as foreign correspondents or war correspondents but not both. Now there is little or no distinction. A Paris correspondent may find himself or herself covering war in the Balkans. Correspondents in Africa, Asia and Latin America court danger a good deal of the time. Yet home offices have not come up with meaningful guidelines to deal with the danger. Foreign editors tell correspondents that no story is worth the loss of their life. But this is a difficult gauge for a reporter on the scene while covering a civil war. Foreign editors sometimes order correspondents to leave a country in turmoil but do nothing when the order is disobeyed. In the most famous case, Sydney Schanberg of the New York Times refused orders to evacuate Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh in 1975 and won the Pulitzer Prize for his stubbornness. After two foreign correspondents died on assignment in the 1970s and 1980s, the Los Angeles Times decided to leave Sarajevo uncovered during the siege of 1992; the New York Times kept its correspondent there, winning another Pulitzer. Question 2: If the students were in Bonner's place, would they have alerted Guillermoprieto that the rebels were issuing invitations to tour rebel territory? Should he have tried to travel with Guillermoprieto? If they had come upon El Mozote together, would that have strengthened or weakened their stories? Should Bonner have alerted others: the correspondents for the Miami Herald, for example, or the correspondents for the TV networks? How do today's various forms of media change the scenario? ANALYSIS: Correspondents often travel together in dangerous areas; they assume there is some safety in numbers. In this case, Bonner alerted Guillermoprieto but made no attempt to have her join him. He did travel with photographer Susan Meiselas. Some veteran foreign correspondents have a rule never to travel with photographers on dangerous assignments. The need of photographers to shoot near the action can drag an accompanying reporter closer to danger than necessary. Although he did not realize it when he phoned, Bonner enhanced the credibility of his controversial story by bringing in another journalist as a witness. By doing so, however, he almost lost a scoop on one of the major stories of the war. Possible Activities Collateral Readings Students should be given an opportunity to study the Guillermoprieto story, the Bonner story and the Truth Commission section on El Mozote, three documents that are appended to this section. End Notes |
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