AThe most serious problem related to banana production in Costa Rica is the effect of the restrictions placed on the fruit by some European nations, but above all, it is the drop in international prices, which affects the producers.@ This is how Elena, a young Costa Rican journalism student, responsed to a question which was included on a written exam where I asked about what some of the country=s agarian problems are.

Elena=s words reflect the media=s influence on a society which accepts as truth all that is reported and as valid whatever the newspaper pages state, television images show or radio waves transmit.

For this reason, as with Elena, thousands of Costa Ricans are unaware of what is seen at a simple glimpse when large banana farms are visited in the Costa Rican Atlantic zone. I am referring to, among other things, the infrahuman conditions that dozens of migrant workers live in (many undocumented), the low salaries they receive--the majority of times lower that those established by law--, despite the fact that the laborers work shifts that exceed 48 hours weekly, the danger that the workers are exposed to due to the application of highly toxic agrochemical products, and --of course-- the constant sexual harrassment suffered by the women working in the banana plantations and packing plants.

These aspects of reality on the plantations do not appear in the media. Moreover, they are hidden when the topic of the banana plantations appears on the front pages of the newspapers to pressure the authorities for policies in favor of new concessions, the elimination of taxes, the extension of benefits, the elimination of work contracts, among other measures. With tears in their eyes and broken voices, the transnational impresarios of the banana plantations comment on them, while fortelling, in an apocaliptic way, the ruin of this agro sector. However, in these cases not only the impresarios are those who fool the public by showing only one facet of the banana problem. The media, its directors and above all the owners of the media, encourage disinformation by forgetting basic aspects of their duty to provide information and above all, the social work that the media ought to be exercising in all society.

From the moment that the media denies the possibility for journalists to visit the banana plantations on organized tours given by entities such as the Emaus Forum, different church denominations, the Defensoria de los Habitantes (Governmental Inhabitants Defense Office) or simply one of the banana unions, the media impeeds the population=s contact with reality. The bias is increased even more, when the reporting or information gathers only the opinion of the impresarios, foremen or traders of the fruit.

Again, the journalist, by incorporating his own world vision to the facts that he analyzes and communicates, he distorts reality and therefore, making the principle of imparciality impossible. From the moment that a situation is defined as news, personal meanings and values and of course, the journalists= own vision about the facts that are being analyzed enter into the picture. We should remember that one=s perception of the world and ideology determine in a good part of what is or isn=t news. From this stems, as Villalobos mencions, Ainformation was and has been connected to power@.

Jimen Chan, on his part, recalls that in each piece of news other versions of the facts are incorporated. Therefore, the perception which is offered to the public is that of the journalist and the media. This is confirmed by Niceto Blazques, who says that Ahe who provides information does it from some individual or collective interest@. When content analysis is applied to the information treated in the media related to the subject of bananas, there is evidence of the bias in information in favor of the impresarios. One can observe very little protagonism of the thousands of workers of the plantations, the dozens of unions and of course, the neighbors of the areas surrounding the plantations which are affected on a daily basis, including by the small planes flying over that fumigate their homes, crops, roads and children in an indiscriminate manner.

These and other occurances are frequently denounced to the Costa Rican media but hardly ever reach the public.

One of the explanations that we can give to this behavior of the media is related to the commercial ends of the enteprises that create and direct the media. Reproducers of the ideology of the economically strongest classes, the dominant criterion and interests are transferred to the information. The news, then, is observed, evaluated, selected and transmitted in funcion of the political and economic determinants of the countries of origin, of their own commercial and unilateral interests. ANewspapers constitute, as a general rule, commercial enteprises and therefore the laws of commerce rule, above all for the desire to achieve profits@, as defined by Werner Goldschmidt and is quoted by Novoa Montreal.

From this perspective, the news, more and more, is transformed into merchandise and fulfills the function of commercial competitivity, where the product must be Asold@ better than that of their rivals, and therefore the logic of the market determines with more frequency what is reported, who reports it and in what manner. The news, is converted in this way into a consumer product; thus, the businesses negotiate their news in appearance and content. The information loses, with this conversion, its capacity to accurately reflect the historical, political and cultural realities that give the facts their true meaning, according to Novoa Monreal.

With regard to the above, philosopher Rodriguez considers that, in competivity those who control the media try to present what is most suggestive and impacting. Therefore one cannot blame himself for the diffusion of sensationalist information to the public, as some communicators do, because behind the selection of what is published the Alogic of power@ is not in play. Considering this reality, the precedence of economic interest over the common good in some of the media, spaces are more and more reduced.

According to Novoa Monreal, the tendency would seem to be that Athe smaller newspapers, sustained by independent intellectuals, disappear absorbed more and more by millionare enterprises. In consequence, freedom of information, in general terms, continues to be freedom of a few in front of the rights of many.@ Thus, confronting the explosion of the globalization processes, the media becomes more and more hegemonic, concentrated in fewer hands, and is at the service of the economically stronger classes.

We can=t forget the press= social responsibility, since, as the Costa Rican journalist Guido Fernandez considers, the press Aacts as a tribune, it reflects and gives voice, with balance, to the different sectors of society with which it interacts and attempts to be guardian of society=s values and its aspirations@. Therefore, a journalists= task is based on supreme values like the search for truth, the right to information, the search for the common good, independence, justice and compassion, among others.

Many times, the conceivers of journalism will contrast with the commercial interests of the media enterprises. The efforts to bring these two positions closer have propitiated important meetings where impresarios and journalists have definded common agendas. Nevertheless, the eagerness for responsible journalism clashes, the majority of times, with the interest for profitablity sought by the media enterprises.

Censured information, changed titles, thrown out notes, expressed or suggested petitionsto not touch such and such a topic, requests to highlight or suppress a part of the facts, are only some of the pressures that can be placed on journalists by the shareholders or financial authorities of the media. I know of the case of a director of a Costa Rican paper that published a report on the inhuman conditions in some banana companies, as well as the results from scientific research on the mutagenic effects in the cells of women banana workers in the Costa Rican Atlantic region. Afterwards, he was Aconvinced@ to print on the back covers ads by the Corporacion Bananera Nacional (CORBANA) [National Banana Corporation] in an attempt to contradict the earlier research.

In all cases one would assume that information professionals should present the facts honestly, to promote debate, give spaces to different social groups and to compete responsibly with other means of communication. This should be permitted without pressure by advertisers or the owners of the media who intend to make journalism a lucrative and commercial profession.

With this panorama, ethic values emerge as elemental conditions for human, fair and truthful communication. Here, each participant in the information process should be able to express and understand the rest in his/her own name; he/she should not have to use the name of the different social institutions from where they are reporting.

For a commentary to be ethical it should be emitted by an individual who is conscious of the beliefs and ideologies that are behind the information, or by which the receiver can inform him/herself, given the highest and noblest ends that can be conceived for it. Of course, the commentary should come from persons who have their own voice. The media, being one of the most effective formers of public opinion, proposes scales of values and models of conduct that influence the construction of a personal identity, much in the same way as the family, schools and eclessiastic institutions do. In the case of information in the Costa Rican commercial media regarding the banana crop, imbalance is evident, disinformation is shameful and in many cases the content of the information favors the transnational impresario, damaging the badly paid immigrant worker.