...on February 29, 2004, AP widely reported
that
Haitian rebels ousted President Aristide and that the United States
provided an escort to take him out of the country to a safe asylum.
Within 24 hours an entirely different story emerged through
independent radio. Instead of the US being the supportive
facilitator of Aristide’s safety, Pacifica Radio News
reported that Aristide was actually kidnapped by US forces. AP
quickly changed their story. On March 1, 2004, an AP report by Deb
Riechman said, “White House officials said Aristide left
willingly and that the United States aided his safe departure. But
in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Aristide said:
“No. I was forced to leave.”
The last AP report of
Aristide’s claiming that he had been kidnapped by the US in a
State Department coup was on June 27, 2004. Since then there have
been more than sixty news articles by AP including Aristide’s
name. Of these stories none mentioned Aristide’s claim that
he was kidnapped by the United States military. None mention the US
backing of the coup. AP’s bias in favor of the State
Department’s version of the Aristide’s removal seems to
be a deliberate case of AP-sanctioned forgetting. AP is a massive
institutionalized bureaucracy that feeds news stories to nearly
every newspaper and radio/TV station in the United States. They are
so large that top-down control of single news stories is
practically impossible. However, research clearly indicates a
built-in bias favoring official US government positions.[19]