New Mexico Daily Lobo
URL: http://www.dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2009/12/peru_column_derogatory_displays_lack_of_integrity
Current Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:32:37 -0700
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Peru column derogatory, displays lack of integrity
Editor,
We, as part of the Peruvian community at UNM, would like to protest the publication of the article “Images of Peru: A Daily Lobo reporter’s journey to South America” on Dec. 1. We would also like to denounce the unethical way the Daily Lobo has handled the complaints of many concerned readers.
Although everyone is entitled to have an opinion, we believe a newspaper has the duty to protect the public from shortsighted views and blatantly derogatory comments toward other cultures’ beliefs and traditions. Reporting must be accurate and fair, and should never be swayed by the reporter’s personal conviction or bias. Moreover, a respectable newspaper has a moral commitment to be impartial and truthful. The Daily Lobo has failed to honor its duty by publishing an improvised, poorly documented article full of biased opinions, and later manipulating information by publishing only selected excerpts from people’s complaints. We believe these actions are shameful and demand a formal apology.
Peru is a country characterized by the warmth of its people, its beautiful territory, colorful traditions, rich culture and history. Peru has poverty, domestic violence and even traffic chaos just like almost every other country. These are issues the country is fighting to overcome and do not disqualify all Peru has to offer to tourists. The author should have acknowledged in his article that his time in Peru is not representative of the culture as a whole. The author’s arrogance is reflected in his wishes for a “better God” for Peruvians to worship, his questioning of other people’s “career choices” and his last paragraph, which out of respect for other citizens of this country, we won’t quote in this letter.
The Daily Lobo failed to act as the provider of unbiased and fair information by publishing the article. Moreover, by arbitrarily censoring excerpts of people’s complaints (while not doing the same for supportive comments) the Daily Lobo acted in an unethical manner. The Daily Lobo has also denied us the right to publish a response article in the same space as the article in mention was published. We hope this letter will be published entirely.
We hope the Daily Lobo’s readers will assign the correct value to the article in mention, and that some will accept our invitation to travel to Peru and enjoy all we have to offer.
Victor Murray
UNM faculty
Simon Barriga
UNM faculty
Alonzo Vera
UNM alumnus
Attilio Ferrari
UNM alumnus
Mayra Salazar
UNM student
Fiorella Vera
UNM student
Jose Cornejo
UNM staff
Flor Espinoza
UNM student
Alicia Paz
UNM student
Mariela Ruiz
UNM student
Hilda Paucar
UNM student
Carla Agurto
UNM student
Eduardo Castro
UNM student
Editor’s note: Contrary to how it was presented originally, the Peru piece was a column, not an article. It should be understood that this was a feature, the reporter’s firsthand account of a trip to Peru and not meant to present hard facts about the country.
Note from reporter Andrew Beale: First of all, I absolutely believe that Peru is a beautiful country, and I know that the great majority of Peruvians are kind, generous and intelligent people. I did not mean to denigrate the culture or beauty of the country, nor did I mean to attack or insult the Peruvian people. I wrote the column the way I did because I was genuinely shocked by some of the things I saw and learned when I visited the country, and I feel that many Americans are sadly unaware of the problems faced in countries that do not enjoy the same economic advantages the U.S. has. I realize that I made some mistakes in the tone of the column, and I understand that what I wrote might be interpreted as an attack on a country or a people. This was not at all my intention. I do not believe that Peruvian culture is in any way inferior to American culture, and the reason I wrote about Peru instead of any other country is simply because that is where I had the opportunity to go.
I feel that my mistake did not lie in writing about poverty and the problems faced in the cities I visited. Instead, my mistake was in not emphasizing the beauty and cultural richness of the country. While in Peru I saw great art, heard great music, ate great food, and met great people. The site of Machu Picchu is certainly one of the most architecturally and culturally impressive collections of structures in the world.
Poverty in Peru, as in many Central and South American countries, is a real problem that deserves to be acknowledged in the press. However, I feel that I made some mistakes in the way I presented my experiences.
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11 comments
Romeo
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Tough times for the Daily Lobo!?
Who is in charge here?
Read more …
Why all the misrepresentations, misquotes, and calling people illegal aliens when they’re citizens (I’d sue the heck out of the DL if I was that gal for Libel (Lies written on paper).
Poor girl was just trying to study! I could see how it went down: You’re photographer probably said, “Hey! Can we take your picture for a story on El Centro de La Raza?” and then……
It takes more than a room full of monkeys with typewriters to make a good newspaper: It’s time to take a long, hard look at yourself, DL.
I know I’ll never give a quote to a DL reporter-They may label me a bank robber or something.
Here’s an idea: Take a couple of journalism classes to see how you’re supposed to do it.
Shameful, really.
Sincerely,
A guy who only believes half of what he reads in the DL.
surprised
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not in one sentence I read an apology from this Mr. Beale on the way he wrote the article. Although in his response, he writes about how awesome Machupicchu was; he said in his previous ‘column’ how he spent all the time in a dark corner of the ruins due to his altitude sickness.
baka
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Mr Beale:
Spend some time in the housing projects of The Bronx, Los Angeles, Chicago, or New Orleans before comparing the U.S. and our “economic advantages” to Cuzco.
Part of the problem was the title of your piece, “Images of Peru,” when your focus was on the social problems of a specific place within the country written rather derisively and without compassion. The problem was not that you didn’t write about the positive experiences you had, but that you wrote about the people you saw so disparagingly and without sensitivity.
I spent three unforgettable months in Peru as a high school exchange student and was blown away by the friendliness and hospitality of the people I met. I really felt at home there and among family, much more than in my travels around the U.S. I also witnessed social problems including poverty and deep ethnic/class divisions there and in other countries in Latin America, but that didn’t overshadow my overall experience which was fantastic. Friends I know who have traveled in Peru also have had excellent experiences.
I want to reassure Peruvians who may read this that many “norteamericanos” love Peru and its people, and that Mr. Beale’s column doesn’t speak for the rest of us.
Mayra Salazar
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I am a nursing student at UNM and have seen a lot of poverty in New Mexico (comparable to Cuzco’s and other rural areas of Peru,and who knows maybe worst). I also did nursing at Cayetano University in Peru so I have had those experiences over there as well. I would like to invite Mr. Beale on a tour in Albuquerque so that he is able to see our reality better instead of thinking that this does not happen right here. During this semester I have been one of the witnesses of emotional violence and physical violence that many women and children have suffered and are suffering. I have to mention that many people in New Mexico are homeless and do not have a place to sleep at night. Also, the statistics in new mexico that are high include poverty in the families(mostly in the southwest of Albuquerque)and high teenage pregnancy rates (much more than other states, especially in thenorth of US) You don’t need to go far to see how many people are asking for money on the sides of the streets near I25 and I40 and on your way out of some Smith’s stores. With all these said,I am trying to make Mr.Beale and his mom to realize that they don’t need to go far to see all these things, which (personally)I don’t think they are bad or make people bad.
What bothered me the most from Mr.Beale’s front page column was the tittle (I agreewith baka). He tittles his front pagecolumn “Images of Peru” …peruvian parables… After critizing poverty and catholic’s religion ‘asking GOd to give us a better God to worship’ as he mentioned, he does not apologize for any of it (and the tone and sarcasm he used). I took his response as: ‘this is what I think I did; and that is it”. Last, Mr.Beale writes only in the website (not in the printed version) how great the music, the art,and the food were; even though he did not even care to mention any of it before. After having people from the dailyLobo manipulate the comments that were printed out from the online website and the way a staff member responded to my concern, I have lost respect for this Newsletter that is not doing what it is supposed to do: Be everyone’s voices and not just some, and not analizing columns and articles’ content before being published.
Jose
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macchu picchu es also like 2 and a half thousand feet lower than the sandia mountains. its not even that high to have altitude sickness…
Jackson
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Mr Beale doesn’t even know what goes on in his backyard (NM) in order to compare the U.S. with other countries. I wonder how much he knows about the serious homeless problem in ABQ
baka
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In fact I wonder if Mr. Beale even went to Peru at all. He could be a fraud. His mother wrote the article, or he cobbled it together based on emails she sent him from Peru. He claims he spent his time at Machu Picchu in a dark corner suffering from altitude sickness, but Cuzco, where he was supposedly staying, is at a higher altitude (10,800’) than Machu Picchu (8,000’). Very fishy. That would explain the tone of his article and why he didn’t report on his positive experiences: he didn’t have any, because he wasn’t even there.
Francisco
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Right here is a news from Mr. Beale’s hometown…
Former Rio Rancho mayor charged with child rape
Posted at: 01/08/2010 11:42 AM | Updated at: 01/08/2010 12:08 PM
By: Reed Upton, KOB.com
Read more …
William HowdenThe first ever mayor of Rio Rancho has been jailed for allegedly molesting a 7-year-old child back in November.
William Howden, 70, faces tree felony charges: criminal sexual penetration of a minor, criminal sexual contact of a minor and kidnapping.
Howden, who the criminal complaint identified as an Episcopal pastor, served for 14 months as the mayor of Rio Rancho – the first mayor of the West Side community after it was incorporated.
Marcus Garvey
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Y aquî, algos noticias de la país de Francisco…
“For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru’s Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.
Read more …
The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end…
Any money the village has is spent on trying to keep their animals from dying. NGOs and children’s groups working in the area warn that in such desperate situations, the lives of alpaca become more valuable than those of children.
“The welfare of children is sidelined because the situation is so bad that everything has become about the survival of the animals, both for the families themselves and the agencies who are trying to support them,” says Teresa Carpio, director of Save the Children Peru. She expects to see child mortality in the region rise this year.
“In the west we tend to think that children take priority above all else, but when there is this level of desperation, children can be the last to get the attention they so badly need – until it is too late…”
There is anger among Huancavelica’s mountain people at what they see as the inaction of regional and central government. Although aid packages and clothing bundles arrive with the onset of winter, it does not compensate for what these people believe is the ambivalence of the authorities to their fate.
“We can only put ourselves in God’s hands, because nobody else is helping us,” says Carolina Flores, a mother of six whose six-month-old daughter is dangerously ill with pneumonia. “Our men have gone and talked to people in the government and told them what is happening to us, but they do nothing. We are not important to them, so we die up here and nobody helps us.”
Marcus Garvey
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/03/peru-mountain-farmers-winter-cold
Francisco
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Marcus,
You got the point! “First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
I am glad you are trying to learn another language. You should say: Aqui, algunas noticas del pais de Francisco.
Keep going! very soon you are going to be fluent!
Good Luck!
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