Does Fox News = El Mercurio (overthrow of Allende)?
Surely a man like Rupert Murdoch knew of the existence of El Mercurio and its role in the overthrow of Allende. And his Australian group prides itself on absolute devotion to Murdoch who does not care for journalistic pedigrees rather those who are clumbsy and prone to errors for they will be even more loyal to him once he forgives them.
Fox News has railed against President Obama since Day 1 of his Presidency. So where is the "enough already" reaction we saw in Wisconsin from voters who viewed the recall more as a little more than a sour grapes reaction? As we have seen with Fox News, they care not about the truth, just slant it to discredit Obama at every occasion. Or follow the antics of the Tea Party to the point of absolute promotion of their every event no matter how sparesely attended they are. Or simply invent or exaggerate to get the distorted message out and suppress votes. While Fox News has not gotten to the extreme of El Mercurio they certainly are walking down some well beaten paths.
A look at how El Mercurio got funded:
By 1972, the paper was "publishing almost daily editorials criticizing the Allende Government;' and "had been guiding and acting as a rallying point for the opposition," the CIA reported in a summary of the El Mercurio Project. "El Mercurio continues to play a leadership role in molding Chilean public opinion" the CIA's Santiago station advised in a February 21, 1973, status report. "El Mercurio [deleted] launched an extensive advertising effort to place the blame for Chile's economic ills at the doorstep of the Allende Government, placing ads wherever possible."
But the activities of the Edwards media group went well beyond placing ads and publishing incendiary articles and anti-Allende editorials. With CIA backing, El Mercurio positioned itself as a bullhorn for organized agitation against the government, and as an ally of pro-coup forces inside the Chilean military on May 2, in one of the most damning cables written by the CIA station, the station chief cabled Langley headquarters on the activities of the political forces inside and outside the military pushing for Allende's overthrow. He identified the "El Mercurio chain of newspapers" as among "the most militant parts of the opposition" -- other groups included the neofascist paramilitary group, Patria y Libertad, and the ultraconservative Partido Nacional, both of which had received agency funding -- which "have set as their objective the creation of conflict and confrontation which will lead to some sort of military intervention." Each of these groups, the cable advised, "is trying to coordinate its efforts with members of the Armed Forces known to them who share this objective."
In June 1973, as social tensions rose dramatically and rumors of coup plotting circulated through Santiago, El Mercurio ran an editorial essentially calling for insurrection. Allende has ceased to be the constitutional president, the paper declared. On June 21, Allende invoked a libel law, passed under a previous administration, and ordered the newspaper closed for six days, but after only one day an appeals court ruled that the government had no standing to suspend the paper, and El Mercurio renewed its drumbeat of opposition and agitation.
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In the aftermath, the CIA's Western Hemisphere covert action division credited El Mercurio with making the military takeover possible:
http://users.beaconschool.org/~lmoscow/chile/The%20El%20Mercurio%20File.htm
Two early victims of the overthrow: Victor Jara, an opera refugee turned pro-worker, who was killed in front of 5,000 people in Chile's soccer stadium for singing songs such as Pablo Neruda's poem. Pinochet's government refused to allow Neruda's doctors to treat him and while Neruda was dying they hastened his demise.
