Word: heralds
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...must. As he admits, The Herald is inappropriate for its job as the country's watchdog because it reaches only English-speaking Argentines, but by that token, the paper does not present as much of a threat to the Argentinian government. While The Herald is unable to convey news of violence and chaos to its native population, it can record the anarchy of terror ripping the South American nation. He occupies a tenuous position of privilege, but has a foothold nevertheless, and Cox and his staff feel they must take advantage of this opportunity to report...
...government accuses us of being Communists and Marxists, of course, but with us, it was harder to prove," he says of The Herald's relative immunity from government attacks. "They've called us everything--cranks, religious idiots. But the paper, over its 100-year existence, was basically a conservative one. We could say, 'We've always been opposed to violence, we were critical when the left wing was killing policemen, kidnapping and murdering business executives, and we spoke out against it,' and in this way we were able to take the position to report the other side of the coin...
Perhaps Cox empathizes because there are times when even The Herald cannot print information about missing people because it can endanger the lives of family members. "It's a very Kafka-like situation in which some people, although they are journalists, have come to the conclusion that the worst thing you can do is publish information. It sounds mad, but it's not. It's one of the symptoms of a society that's got sick," he says...
...turn, the job of the journalist in Argentina becomes difficult--if he decides to probe the plight of missing people. Cox explains that reporters at The Herald are under a great deal of pressure not to make mistakes, because any mistake could prove fatal. Fatal in what way? Cox says quietly the most innocuous thing would be the government deciding to close the paper and jail the editors. The violence in Argentina is so severe that an incorrect judgement on the part of a writer or editor could result in being "machine-gunned down in the street...
...explanation is baffling at first, but Cox maintains that this alone is reason for reporting efforts that can only be described as courageous. Even as the highest ranking official on The Herald, Cox has gone out on the streets to report on mothers organized to find their mysteriously missing children--a story no other newspaper would touch...