Saturday, June 29, 2013

Rafael Correa and the Media

Rafael Correa is angry that he cannot control how the media frames the Edward Snowden saga.

Correa contended that the news media at first welcomed Snowden's leaks about secret U.S. programs to collect phone logs and Internet emails but later suggested the actions were treasonous.

"What a joke!" the president said in a tweet. The media, he said, are "making everyone forget the terrible things that he denounced in front of the American people and the entire world."


He has a right to be annoyed that Ecuador is demonized by many in the U.S. for considering an asylum request (generating annoying headlines like this) but by doing so Correa intentionally became part of the story, and so the story shifted. As long as Snowden is on the run, then there are really two stories, and the more immediate will be about him being on the run.

Correa's anger at how his actions are portrayed in the international media are directly related to the new communications in law in Ecuador, whereby the state can punish journalists if they frame issues in a way the state believes is unfair.

Most likely Correa hoped to be framed as a hero of sorts, and that's not the treatment he's getting. His own government is even messing that up because when you release a safe conduct letter without approval, that becomes a juicy part of the story. The point, though, is that how he wants the issue framed is irrelevant. He does not get to control that part, at least not outside Ecuador.

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