[EM] Zimbabwe

[Anthony Simmons]

>> From: "Narins, Josh" <josh.narins at lehman.com>
>> Subject: RE: [EM] Zimbabwe

>> >> You believe that Morgan Tsvangirai is a thug???

>> All I said was that I have not read anything about his
>> party, except that they oppose Mugabe. The recent
>> Bloomberg newswire peice on the subject was where I got
>> the 56-42 numbers and the 33 dead. In fact, the story
>> lists 33 dead for the entire year.

Probably my mistake.  I think we're talking about different
things.  The 33 is most likely the number of farmers, not the
total number of people killed over the election; the land
grabs have been getting the most attention in America.

>> Yes, much of the American media sucks, however, Bloomberg
>> newswire, relied on, as it is, by bond traders and
>> international currency speculators, is usually very on top
>> of international crisis situations.

My mistake again.  I should have been clearer.  I didn't mean
to say that the American press is wrong about such things, or
even covering up anything.  There is some excellent
journalism in the U.S. (I don't judge it by network TV news,
since the medium has serious inherent limitations), though I
do have some reservations about some aspects.  What I meant
is that the U.S. press works for the U.S. public, and
Americans just don't care what happens in Zimbabwe.  It's not
one of the poster boys like the Union of South Africa.  The
foreign press gives us the opportunity to find out what
matters to others; in this case, the coverage is good in
Commonwealth countries, because it's in their yard and they
have to deal with it.  And in Zimbabwe, of course, though
it's hard to tell if any of it is even close to objective.

>> They could well be wrong.

It's unlikely, though any figures out of Zimbabwe are getting
less and less reliable.  It's now illegal to do journalism
there without government license.

>> They had an article about voting today, actually, I wrote
>> the author a short note. I've had a couple notes I've sent
>> to Bloomberg authors turn into corrections before.  :)

An answer to Forest's question about how to deal with the
press when they get it wrong.

>> >From the bloomberg Newswire (Mar 18, 4:03PM)

What was the correction you sent them?

>> BN  16:03 San Francisco to Adopt Instant Runoffs for
>> Elections, AP Says