AP's Oaxaca Correspondent in Conflict-of-Interest

Associated Press correspondent in Oaxaca, Rebeca Romero, spent much of 2006 distorting the story of the Popular Assembly movement in Oaxaca to protect that state's disgraced governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

Last November, it was Romero who published the now-discredited AP story claiming that it was protesters from the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, in its Spanish initials) that assassinated Indymedia cameraman Brad Will, a story that helped state prosecutors free the real assassins – members of the governor's political machine – captured on film by Will and others as they shot guns at him.

Romero, who also has hew own news agency and web site, issued a public letter on Sunday to Narco News in which she called upon Mexican "authorities" to investigate our correspondents and denied receiving money from the Oaxaca governor.

But Romero, in addition to being an unethical and corrupted journalist, is also apparently not a very bright one. She posted her breathless denial right next to an advertisement sponsored by the "Oaxaca State Government."

Her conflict-of-interest – reporting on the embattled Oaxaca governor while she publishes a website sponsored by his state government – is eerily similar to that of ex-AP bureau chief in Bolivia, Peter McFarren, who had to resign after we published, in 2000, proof of his conflict with the Bolivian government through a foundation he directed.

Romero has the same kind of conflict-of-interest. Additionally, on her website she has called upon Mexican "authorities" to investigate Narco News correspondents. Read the opening story in this saga:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2492.html - Associated Press Correspondent in Oaxaca Urges Mexican "Authorities" to Investigate Narco News
- AP's Rebeca Romero Insists She Is Not on Ulises Ruiz's Payroll, but Publishes Her Denial on Her Website Next to an Ad… Purchased by the Oaxaca State Government
- By Al Giordano - Publisher, Narco News

http://www.narconews.com/

Also on Narco News, two new stories by Nancy Davies from Oaxaca about the ongoing Popular Assembly movement – stories that, increasingly, those in power and their official "journalists" are trying to censor and silence.

The Popular Assembly Movement Advances While Neoliberalism Stalls
http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2491.html

&
Day of the Kings in Oaxaca, Where URO Is King
http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2490.html

The story of the unethical conflict-of-interest by AP correspondent Rebeca Romero in Oaxaca has only just begun. Read the opening salvo today and stay tuned for the next steps.

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/

ENDS

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