The Corporate Media hates Socialists

This post was was written in 2019 and recently updated

When I was growing up we got most of our news from what was called “main stream media”, TV and Newspapers whose editorial content tended to reflect the views of readers and listeners and they sold millions of Newspapers to their readers. This has all changed in recent years. With the advent of the internet, Newspaper sales dropped significantly and most newspapers became dependent on advertisers to survive. Advertisers wanted the newspapers to present a positive image of their products and to create a symbiotic relationship with the political establishment. Some newspapers folded others went exclusively online presenting click bate for the masses. The Guardian newspaper in UK has received millions from Bill Gates, in fact Gates has donated $319 million to various media outlets, presumably he expects something in return for this investment. As do newspapers who ask politicians the questions they want asks. Most journalists today are merely stenographers for someone’s vested interests. How else does one explain Julian Assange’s years of detention. If that had happened in Russia there would have been outrage. We all knew Pravda was the mouth piece of the Soviet Government, but western media claims that it is “independent and free” is laughable.

La Prensa is a Nicaraguan newspaper, with offices in the capital Managua. Founded in 1926, in 1932 it was bought by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Zelaya, who had become editor-in-chief and and remained in the Chamorro family until this day. After the second world war resistance to the Somoza dictatorship developed in numerous quarters of Nicaragua and La Prensa continued to be a voice of opposition to the dictatorship. In 1952 Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, became the editor in Chief of La Prensa and spent time in prison for his opposition to the Somoza dictatorship.

On January 10, 1978, Chamorro was murdered and it was widely believed Somoza’s son, “El Chigüin”, was behind the murder. Chamorro became a martyr, and his assassination helped ignite widespread opposition to the Somoza government. Many of the middle and upper classes gravitated towards the Sandinista ( who got many of their insurgents from the poor) insurgency after his murder. His assassination was a catalyst for the beginning of the final mass insurrection against Somoza. Somoza final act before fleeing Nicaragua, was to order the destruction of La Prensa by his Guardsmen, who burned the offices to the ground.

After the fall of the government, Chamorro’s widow, Violeta, served on the five-member Junta of National Reconstruction. However, Chamorro and the middle-class supporters of the revolution had a different vision for the country than the Sandinistas. When it became apparent that these differences could not be resolved, Violeta Chamorro resigned from the junta in 1980 and began to oppose the Sandinistas.

On September 10, 1980, Sandinista Government decrees 511 and 512 established prior censorship for matters of national security (isn’t that how western Governments justify the locking up of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden et al), Nicaragua was now at war with a US supported army (the Contras) operating out of Honduras. In this period the US, with the support of La Prensa, started its campaign against the Sandinista government, by giving secret financial and arms support to the Contras. In this struggle under the Sandinistas, La Prensa was also often accused of being a puppet of the CIA. The paper admitted receiving funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, a bipartisan, Congressionally financed agency created to take over financing of groups that in the past had received covert aid from the CIA. This relationship with the enemy would not be acceptable in any developed country, never mind Nicaragua.

On March 15, 1982, the government declared a state of emergency, and closed down all independent broadcast new programs. Sandinista censorship began clamping down on political dissent and criticism. During the 1980s, La Prensa received extensive subventions from the United States National Endowment for Democracy.^[17] La Prensa staff members wrote articles in The Washington Post and other major US papers denouncing the Sandinistas. La Prensa’s strident criticism of Sandinista policies, particularly its economic policies, and its attacks on FSLN leader Daniel Ortega allegedly led the Sandinistas to adopt various restrictions on press freedom. In Necessary Illusions, Noam Chomsky wrote that, La Prensa “made little effort to disguise its role as an agency of US propaganda, dedicated to overthrowing the government of Nicaragua by force”.

So it was reassuring of how things were in Nicaragua in September 2019 to find copies of La Prensa in the lobby of our posh hotel. This Prensa has a heading calling the President Daniel Ortega a “Repressive Dictator” who has taken control of the media. Not too dissimilar from what you would find on the Daily Mail when referring to Socialist Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn. I Picked up my copy to show my friends in UK, who had told me the paper had been banned by the “dictatorship”, so obviously La Prensa’s strategy now the opposition has so little influence and most now live in the US, is to conflate the democratically elected president Daniel Ortega (and his wife Rosario Murillo who ran in the election of 2017) with the Somoza dictatorship that ruled Nicaragua for almost 50 years

In 1990 after ten years of war, the people decided to take a chance on the “ La Prensa” promises of US investment and peace. Violeta Chamorro returned to politics and was elected President, on a neoliberal economic plan, conservative on social issues and largely aligned with the United States. They identified closely with the Catholic Church, whose views on abortion in Nicaragua are particularly repressive and the issue became a major political issue in 2003 before the 2006 election. The Chamorra victory and a major split in the Sandinista leadership in 1994, presented the conservative, elite two other chances to govern in 1996 and 2002. Unfortunately few of the promises were delivered ( unless an influx of MacDonalds and Walmart dumping, products they were unable to sell in US and undercutting Nicaraguan farmers produce). According to NORAD corruption was also rife during this period. In 1986 the International Court of Justice, ordered the United States to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming and financing Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan ports during the conflict, the Chomorra coalition told the US they would drop the complaint and not seek compensation from the US. The poor in Nicaragua could not get much poorer but the rich did well and could travel freely to the US.

By 2006 the poor realised their lives were not going to improve under capitalism and after 16 years in opposition Daniel Ortega was re elected President and according to the IMF in 2024 “The Nicaraguan economy remained resilient through multiple shocks over the past five years, supported by appropriate policies, substantial pre-crisis buffers (primarily government deposits), and multilaterals support. After a strong rebound in 2021, the economy continued to grow at a steady pace in 2022 and through June 2023 (3.8 percent). Having been in Nicaragua twice in 2024 you can see the growth as part of Chinas investment in Latin America help, two major road constructions in Managua, plans for a international hub airport. a new fleet of white busses purchased from China to replace the old yellow American buses. And the biggest teaching hospital has just been constructed in Leon. Even in the five years since I was there in 2019 there has been huge progress.

On August 12, 2021, La Prensa suspended its physical print edition, blaming the Government for its closure. The fact is there are no physical papers any more in Nicaragua, even the Sandinista media have gone online. “ La Prensa” is still how Nicaragua’s “Elite” shares their version of Nicaragua to the western capitalist world. They hate Ortega and have represented the opposition to him since the 80s. Just as the media in the UK hates Jeremy Corbyn and anyone with what are termed “hard left” wing views, which seem to include our recommendations for ending child poverty in UK. . La Prensa have slightly changed their raison d’etre, it is still to get rid of the Sandinistas and their Social programmes to educate the public and reduce inequality. But there is little apatite for “neoliberal policies” in Nicaragua any more. So much of their online editorial content is produced for consumption in US and “western” world, perfectly illustrated during the covid Pandemic when the Nicaraguan Government was an outlier from most countries (except Sweden) in its approach to Covid. The La Prensa Narrative was the Ortega Government was doing nothing for its people, allowing them to die on the street and burying the dead in secret. This version was given extensive coverage by by the western media and was completely untrue. In fact having interviewed many of the doctors I have worked with for a blog post, I would argue that the Nicaraguan approach to Covid was the most progressive of any country in the world; they had a lower death rate than most developed countries for the decisions they made, which the science now tells us was extremely wise.

So Nicaragua has a “free press”, just like the one we have in the UK, which is “free” to publish speculation or “fake news” for a gullible public to lap up. What makes countries like Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela different, is the “elite” have been marginalised and not in a million years would the ordinary working people in Nicaragua believe the likes of Boris Johnsen, Keri Starmer, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump or Joe Biden were “Men of the People”; It would be interesting to hear their views on the law the Sandinistas passed, which requires that 50% of the “MPs” have to be women. Nicaragua is pushing an equality strategy, that you wont read about in La Prensa similar, to equality laws you would find in Scandinavia. People like to criticised Daniel Ortega for his wife Rosario as his vice Presidential candidate in the elections, but the fact is Nicaragua is ranked 4th in the world for number of females in the governments cabinet and it is the same in all areas of local government,