Richard Cohen was one of many journalists depicting anger at CIA--cocaine links as a byproduct of black paranoia. Time (9/30/96) got the ball rolling nationwide with a piece by Jack E. White, who provided gratuitous asides about "conspiracy theories" and "bizarre fantasies." That approach quickly became a stylish media fixation--reducing documented allegations against the CIA to the level of sociological curiosities.
This theme of black paranoia accompanied all three of the major papers'attacks on the Mercury News series. Often the coverage dripped withcondescension, as when the Washington Post's Hamil R. Harris (10/24/96)scolded a mostly black audience for not giving credence to CIA denials: "It didn't matter to the crowd that CIA inspector general Frederick P. Hitztold the panel that a brief 1988 study concluded 'the agency neither participated in nor condoned drug trafficking by the contra forces.' Most in the crowd decided not to believe him a long time ago."
Media wonderment over African-Americans' strange beliefs reached a highpitch of unintended irony in Tim Golden's Oct. 21 New York Times report. Golden noted that "in 1990, long before any major news organizations had connected crack and the CIA," a poll showed that many blacks alreadybelieved that the government deliberately allowed drugs into the black community. Talk about bizarre fantasies: 1990 was years after a number of major news organizations, including the Associated Press (12/20/85) and CBS News (West 57th, 4/6/87, 7/11/87), documented involvement by the CIA-backed contras in the cocaine trade-not to mention the documentation of CIA participation in opium trafficking in Southeast Asia (The Politics ofHeroin, Alfred W. McCoy). The mainstream media's ability to simply ignore any evidence that doesn't fit their worldview is the true mark of the delusional mindset.
-Jim Naureckas