...And Well Tied Down: Chile's Press Under Democracy

(Hardback)

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Collaborators of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet took over Chile's news media as part of an endeavor to promote the ideology of the dictatorship during times of democracy. To support this claim, Leon-Dermota offers a complete examination of Chile's media and political and economic bases that no political science, economic, or media studies work has done. Finding that much of Chile's power-brokering occurs outside of the political playing field, Leon-Dermota shows why left-of-center governments elected since 1990 have been powerless to advance programs or policies not approved by Chile's power elite, which comprises most industry, the rightmost Roman Catholic service organizations, and the mediawith the goal of imposing an ideology descended from fascist Spain under Francisco Franco.

Reviews

Until now no one had fully explored the role of the press (particularly El Mercurio, published in Santiago, Chile) in the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Chile's Marxist president Salvador Allende. Using information gained as a consultant on six Chilean newspapers, in numerous interviews, and from content analysis, Leon-Dermota names names and provides facts and anecdotal evidence about one of the most disgraceful periods in the history of journalism.A harmonious blend of hard facts backed up by tables of hard-to-come-by data, the author's personal accounts, and interesting and revealing vignettes of key players, the book is indispensable to the growing literature showing media's attachment worldwide to power (governments, military) and money (corporations) at the expense of people. Essential. All collections; all readers. * Choice *

Author Bio

KEN LEON-DERMOTA is an Editor for Agence France-Presse, in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Chile Inedito (2002), and has contributed to Business Week, National Public Radio, and The Christian Science Monitor.