Media Representations of Haiti

Overview

The year 2004, Haiti was at war with itself at that time and a complete revolt was about to take place. The Haitian government was in shambles and completely dismantled. The president at that time Jean-Bertrand Aristide was just ousted. Organized crime and rates were just skyrocketing and people were going hungry. Cite Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum had become the most dangerous part of Port-Au-Prince. It was just immersed in violence and ruled by armed gangs. Armed gangs just terrorized local civilians and ran out local police. They inflicted all sorts of humanely possible harm imaginable; rape, murder, and kidnapping to their own people in their own native land. Haiti at that time became an icon that the media portrayed as a country of hopeless people. It had become an image in the media as a never ending story of struggle and poverty-stricken people. These images brought upon devastation to the entire Diaspora community of Haiti because Haiti was no longer the country that they knew and loved, but a place that they now feared to go back home too every time they turned on the TV or turned the pages in their local news paper. In spite of all this, the media did not proclaim causality but rather pronounced the events taken place.

Voodoo, Zombies, and Mermaids: U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Haiti

In Voodoo, Zombies, and Mermaids: U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Haiti, Amy E. Potter focuses on the depictions of Haiti in seven areas. These areas are: poverty, social problems, social conditions, and economic conditions. Most importantly regarding the topic of this article, Potter illustrates these subject matters by producing newspaper articles, public opinions, and tables of specific terminologies used to describe these subject matters produced in our mass media. The focal point of Voodoo, Zombies, and Mermaids: U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Haiti is the false portrayals that the mass mediums in the United States cover on the country Haiti. This then transcends into common inaccurate consensus of the country and its people.^[1]

Potter accurately obtains evident depictions of Haiti by examining periods throughout January 1 to December 31 of 2004. She focuses on the bicentenary that marks Haiti’s 200th Independence Day, political uproar over Aristide’s Coup D’etat, and the devastation of Hurricane Jeanne. She also has provides confirmation on these subject matters through presenting parts of articles written in the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, USA Today, and the Boston Globe. The most common perception that Potter first addresses is the common consensus that Haiti is a futile state and lacks suitable government practices. Potter uses the New York Times March 14, 2004 article entitled Life is Hard and Short in Haiti’s Bleak Villages as well as a quote in USA Today by Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, as evidence to illustrate these notions further. Potter also explains that in doing her research in 2004, it was proven that media reports on Haiti never recognized the relationships that Haiti had or has with other countries, particularly the United States. Potter also lightly writes about the down fall of Haiti’s tourism production. She writes that the downfall of Haiti’s tourism was due to the 1980s aids exposure, which incorrectly revealed the country to be the origin of the disease and the myth that if you were Haitian, you were more prone to obtaining the disease.^[1]

Press Coverage of Haiti

Potter presents the idea that newspaper articles written in the United States often write about Haiti as if the country is not a component to the rest of the world. In contrast however, Haiti has been connected with the United States geography, Diasporas, and economy for over 300 years. The early media representations of Haiti during the nineteenth century accented on cannibalism, communist threats, along with Tontons Macoutes and zombies. The media coverage of the initial efforts to remove Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power reported, sourcing the CIA, that the president was a murderer, psychopath, and was mentally unstable. These reports were later proven to be fabricated by the CIA. However, television associations in the United States persist in running false accusations. In the subsequent years after the removal of Aristide from power, the United States media continued to illustrate him in a negative light. The United States media was also unsuccessful in reporting factual statics of Aristide’s presidency regarding abuse to human right acts. Potter uses the Boston Media Action study to provide evidence of this. The Boston Media Action study proved that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, and the Boston Globe credited about 60 percent of bogus human rights abuses to Aristide.^[1]

The Violence and Political Unrest Frame

In describing Haiti’s political stance, Potter specifies that the term “violence” emerged in 211 articles in all five newspapers. The media as well includes various other terminologies such as: unstable place, turmoil, chaos, and corruption in telling about Haiti. The phrase “blood” has also been exercised in some way fifty-nine times in all five newspapers. In every one of the five newspaper articles, the interpretation of Jean Bertrand-Aristide’s Coup D’etat was not presented truthfully. In mentioning the Coup D’etat, newspaper articles cut down the actualities, did not precisely recognized Aristide’s plea, and if they did, it was cited it last. Potter also presents an account from the Miami Herald to comply with this notion.^[1]

The Poverty Frame

In Potter’s 2004 findings, she discovered that reports positioned Haiti as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere or in the Americas. Haiti’s poverty is exposed in the media with the intentions to relay that the impoverished state is self inflicted. Even though Haiti is an impoverished country there are key things to understand why that may be. For instance, Haiti is a division within the category of low income countries due to irregular financially viable trades with other major countries. Information such as this is often misrepresented or not revealed at all in today's media.^[1]

The Economy Frame

In Potter’s reports from 2004, she gathered that not too many people are aware of Haiti’s damaged economic state, and that Haiti’s economic state has been damaged for many years. Potter concludes that an exceptionally small number of people are informed of Haiti’s debt to France in 1825 for the amount of 90 million gold francs in order to receive notoriety of its independence. Today’s media has not succeeded in informing its audience of the industrialization plans of the 1980s, which would have included U.S. patrons who devised to benefit from economical labor in Haiti. These devise schemes are pinnacle to Haiti’s reliance on imports. The media often reported the dependency Haiti has on the U.S., however in reciting Haiti’s position, reports were often false. In Potter’s findings, editorials infrequently discussed guidelines that initiated Haiti’s confidence in global aid.^[1]

The History Frame

Potter accounts that Haiti has celebrated its 200th anniversary of liberation from France. Newspapers depict this celebration as one of great dissatisfaction because as the first ever black republic, Haiti has unsuccessfully managed to prosper in its efforts. Potter presents an excerpt from the Miami Herald that promotes this idea of disappointment further. On the other hand, Potter does stress the neglectful newspaper reports that fail to indicate other contributing factors to Haiti’s political stance. Potter also points out the prejudice frame created by American slaveholders and the Western world as supporting factors for the poor representations of Haiti. She emphasizes that because of slavery and discriminatory racial rule, Haiti was fated to negative illustrations. Potter reports an unusual excerpt in the Miami Herald as verification that Haiti’s history and relationship with America is commonly undervalued.^[1]

The Illicit Drugs Frame

Potter uncovered 42 accounts in her 2004 findings that position Haiti as a dispatcher of cocaine. She concludes that 8 out of the 42 accounts imply that Haiti was a main port for U.S. designated Columbian cocaine. Potter attests her findings by presenting pieces from the New York Times, Miami Herald, and the Boston Globe as confirmation to the 42 accounts. The National Drug Intelligence Center scrutinized drug transmission and participation of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola. The National Drug Intelligence gathered no substantial evidence that support claims presented in newspaper recordings. Potter also accounts the Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement, which proves the island of Hispaniola’s contribution to the cocaine trade to be about only 7 percent. Potter states that the U.S. media in 2004 unsuccessfully mentioned Aristide’s and Haiti’s standpoint on the issues of narcotic transshipment in an honest manner. She notes that Aristide strongly was not in favor of the narcotic trade. Potter also addresses the 1991 military Coup D’etat of Aristide, which the drug trade financed. Potter goes on to address the issue of the U.S. delay in reinstating Aristide, a president who went against the narcotic trade, to standing behind leader General Cédras with recognized involvements in the drug trade. All matters that the U.S. media fails to share in telling Haiti’s connection to the narcotic trade industry.^[1]

The Landscape Frame

Potter indicates that when the landscape of Haiti is spoken about in the media, they often reflect on the natural disasters that passed in Haiti along with arising environmental issues. Most notably in 2004 was the flooding in June and hurricane Jeanne in September. These two events pronounced Haiti’s landscape in the media. Potter accounts 33 reports citing deforestation in Haiti. Potter states that some of these reports were holding Haiti accountable for present-day deforestation and erosion issues. Potter also infers that the overall landscape of Haiti is often referred to descriptive words such as dirty, muddy, trash-filed, mountainous, and deforested country which is awaiting their next human inflicted disaster. However, if the U.S. media for one moment looked into the environmental history of Haiti, they would discover that for the duration of the colonial age the French are the ones responsible for introducing techniques to promote mass production as well as initiated cutting down trees for distribution purposes. Future environmental issues arouse from urbanization and the growth of industrialization in Port-au-Prince.^[1]

The Refugee Frame

Potter accounts the political instability of Haiti as the motive for uprising dialogues about refugees and mass exits of Haitians by boats in the media. Potter notes common idioms such as “growing exodus” and “impending mass exodus” that promoted the notion of mass refugees. Phrases such as “mass boat migration” and “boatloads” also impeded the minds of readers in the United States to believe that a mass exodus of Haitians were underway. Potter’s analytical findings also exposed Haitian people being referred to as “other”. Potter presents a piece of an article that referred to voodoo, zombies, and mermaids from the Washington Post with the intent to exemplify the Haitian people as the “other”. Potter comments that the author miss-judged Haitian people, and by doing this, the author described Haitians to be ludicrous and the country to be peculiar by implying that voodoo is the nationwide belief and that they believed in the existence of mermaids. Potter also samples various quotes and excerpts from the New York Times, which all entail the idea that Haitian people are “other” than the likes of mankind.^[1]

A Geographical Frame

Interestingly enough, Potter points out that a geographical frame of Haiti continuous to surface throughout her newspaper investigations without any added research. In the USA Today selection titled “Haiti Begins Again”, Potter explains that although the piece attempted to give some historical perspective, it lacked in providing insight into outside contributing factors. The main geographical frame of Haiti is one that describes the country as the political, economic, and environmental destruction of the Western Hemisphere. The political instability and poverty of Haiti is on constant repeat in the media. The political instability, violence, and landscape have also allowed the U.S. government to eradicate unfavorable persons in charge and deny Haitian refugees access onto American soil.^[1]

Four Years Later

Just about four years following Hurricane Jeanne, Hurricane Gustav passed the island in September 2008 causing the same devastation. After the passing of Hurricane Gustav, media stories once again described Haiti with noticeably the same worries that appeared throughout Potter’s investigation during her 2004 coverage. Potter provides two excerpts to call attention to this idea. One, although may seem harmless but is very condescending, is from Bloomberg and the other is from a New York Times article. The Bloomberg dared to refer to Haiti as a former dependency of the French, which they in retrospect would never refer to the United States as a former dependency of the British. As for the New York Times piece, it insinuated that a town in Haiti has been through so much turmoil that generations after generations of children learn crying is not going to increase affective change. According to Potter, Haiti suffers greatly today because of constant media outpour of negative representations. The United States media is unsuccessful at sufficiently recognizing Haiti’s current problems or appropriate historical perspective, which in turn delays affective resolutions from emerging.^[1]

Good Guys and Bad Guys: A Content Analysis of New York Times and Washington Post Coverage of the 2004 Coup d'État in Haiti

See Also

• Haiti

• Hispaniola

• History_of_Haiti

• Haitian_Revolution

• History_of_Haitian_Nationality

• Haiti_–_United_States_relations

• United_States_occupation_of_Haiti

• List_of_natural_disasters_in_Haiti

• Hurricane_Gustav

• Hurricane_Jeanne

• 2010_Haiti_earthquake

• Jean-Bertrand_Aristide

• Media_influence

• History_of_Haitian_nationality_and_citizenship

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Potter, Amy E. (2009). "Voodoo, Zombies, and Mermaids: U.S. Newspaper Coverage of Haiti". Geographical Review. 99 2: 208–230. 

Baumgartel, Elaine (2007). "Good Guys and Bad Guys: A Content Analysis of New York Times and Washington Post Coverage of the 2004 Coup d'État in Haiti". Conference Papers--National Communication Association 1. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost. </ref>