POST PUBLISHER SAYS IAPA FAILS TO SERVE LATIN DEMOCRACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100660024-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: October 29, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

THE WASHINGTON POST ` C^C t (, C , 1 -1 "t .. , d1, , I"
Approved For Release 2004/Z0418 DP88-01314R0'0100O6f0,024-7 1,\ A 1
Post PublisherSays IAPA'
Fails to Serve Latin Democracy
The Inter American Press j first mocking the conflict as
Association is failing to
achieve its aims of strengthen-
ing democracy and unity in
the hemisphere, the publisher
,of The Washington Post said
last night.
Mrs. Katharine
Graham,
who is also chairman of the
host committee for the IAPA's
annual meeting here, 'cited
three symptoms of failure:
? The "steady retreat" from
press freedom in most of
Latin America, Including Ar-
gentina, Brazil, Panama. Uru-
guay and even, briefly, Chile.
? The "joint journalistic fail-
ure" during the El Salvador-
Honduras conflict last summer
that saw the press of both
countries "aggressively irre-
sponsible-it printed rumor
for fact, maligned its neighbor
... and abdicated a free
press's responsibility to seek
and to tell the truth."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Graham
said, the press of the United
States `veered' wildly....from
"the soccer war"-to grossly
sensationalizing the battles
when they did occur.
?The deployment of corre-
spondents from North and
South America, which has
"Poorly served" the unity of
the Americas. She pointed out
that only 10 correspondents
for daily American newspa.
pers are in Latin America, and
Your such Latin American cor-
respondents are in the United
seated newspapers that the
great need in Latin America is
"a press that is not only intel-
lectually but also financially
independent."
"The highest democratic
service of the kind of press we
believe in, is to warn the peo-
ple of menaces to freedom---i
not write obituaries on free-i
dom," she said.
"Freedom of the press must:l
be seen as something more
than an idealistic abstraction:'
it means the practical, finan-
cial, everyday freedom of the
individual journalist. So long
she advocated a Latin Ameri-' as this journalist cannot sup-
can "common market of news" sport his family without sup-
with an augmented press
corps offering "coverage_'of
United States life and politics
untainted by any suspicion as
may attach to our reportage
on ourselves." She added that
in this way Latin Americans
could also "report news of
themselves more fully to each
other."
Mrs. Graham told the pub-
plementing his income with a
non-journalistic job, neither
the journalist nor his press is
truly free,"
Mrs. Graham addressed an
IAPA dinner at the Sheraton
Park Hotel; as did astronaut
Frank Borman. The JAPA
meeting will continue through
Friday, closing with President
Nixon's Latin. American policy
Ushers , of. about?~a50 reprC'apeeoh.
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000100660024-7