“Seventeen Days”

It is with a certain sense of pride that I took on reading this rather elongated article being

as my family members were dissidents from the Díaz regime in Mexico. That pride is the same

that I am sure the medical students felt when they began to riot in the wake of the gruesome

murder of a Mexican by the name of Antonio Rodríguez, in the desolate, West Texas town of

Rocksprings. The events that took place over the concurrent seventeen days would lead to the

ringing of the bells of revolution all over Northern Mexico. Those same events would also lead

to mass misinformation by what, at the time, were reliable news sources.

The essay made a point to include headlines and articles from both American and

Mexican newspapers such as the New York Times, El Paso Morning Times, and El

Debate. These newspapers were vital sources of facts and information at the time, but as the

article clearly draws out, their attempt to report the news from the borderlands turned the entire

ordeal into an ignominious failure. Media outlets in both countries were extremely guilty of

over-sensationalizing the happenings. As one Mexico City newspaper published in an article

entitled, “The Cloven Feet of the Counting-House Nobility”:

The iron hoof of the Texas ‘Yankee,’ in his barbarous and savage sentiments

of race-hatred, is now not trampling upon the Negro; but the rottenness of its

core has spread out so as to wound and even kill a Mexican, by the iniquitous

of lynching.” (Raun, p. 69)

Even the New York Times, with all of its supposed prestige, gave false reports and

predictions and attempted to downplay the events that were taking place in Mexico:

There is not the slightest danger of any further trouble with Mexico, unless

the American press and the Government are misled by the few so-called
 revolutions, who find it safer to dwell along our border than in their native

country, and conduct their feeble propaganda from El Paso, San Antonio,

Laredo, Eagle Pass, and other towns in which they find a harbor of refuge.

The Government in Mexico City is in perfect agreement with the Government

in Washington.

(Raun, p. 80)

This problem still carries on in today’s society. Our media outlets are just as guilty of

over-sensationalizing the news today than they were in the previous century. My primary

concern, one that has been shown to have worked already, is that the media outlets will report the

misinformation as truth, “...informed upon unquestionable authority.” (Raun, p. 76) A prime

example would be our search for the infamous, “weapons of mass destruction,” in Iraq. We were

a nation that was feeling the sting of terrorism. The Government in Washington, based on their

own misinformation, told the press that our nation was going to be on the search for these

weapons that were a threat to our national security. In order for a high rate of public approval,

the press began a campaign to evoke a sense of nationalism.

This is a dangerous situation for Americans to be in. What happens if a high ranking

government official has a grudge against minstrels, and persuades the press to rally an anti-

minstrel sentiment in the United States? It seems a bit ridiculous, but quiet possible. The

expansion of media with the advent of cable television just increases the danger. It seems as if

the media is looking to make up our minds for us. American citizens are in danger of losing their

freedom to think. If we lose our thoughts, we lost our voice.

The situation in Rocksprings, Texas was an experiment for the media to sway the public

opinion. It has been shown that not only American media attempts to sway public opinion, but
all medias in every nation. We must tread carefully and think for ourselves. Our security

depends upon it.