Has The News Always Been Bias?

While it is said that there were all sorts of false reports, what is termed "fake news" today, in newspapers as far back as the American Revolution, I was once under the impression that the Copperhead Democrat newspaper attacks on President Abe Lincoln during the Civil War was the worse examples of bias and hate speech coming from the news media. Looking at things today though, the news media has them beat with 24 hour news and commentary that is vicious and actually venomous when talking about President Donald Trump. What's being presented in the news today is hate and bias on a personal level that's really never been seen in American history. 

Of course, if you think that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, the BBC, or even the NPR's bias reporting are all something new for 2019, you will probably be surprised to know that biased reporting and spin in the news media has been around for years. Take for example the following story of Pancho Villa as reported by newsman Norman Walker in 1923.

Texas newspaper reporter Norman Walker was born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1883. In 1907, while in his early 20s, he relocated to El Paso, Texas. In El Paso, he began his career in the newspaper business as a reporter for the Associated Press and later the El Paso Herald. Later he became city editor of the El Paso Herald. On June 30th, 1952, he died in Big Springs, Texas. He was 69 years old at his passing.

He is well known for covering the Pancho Villa uprising in Mexico for the Associated Press. During that revolutionary period in Mexico, Walker worked as the representative for the Associated Press in El Paso. It was during that time that he became an eyewitness to history taking place on the border. 

While that in itself would have been an impressive resume, believe it or not, some have reported that Norman Walker was more than just a newspaper reporter at the time. Fact is he became a close personal confidante of Pancho Villa. Yes, in fact, Walker is actually known to have advised Villa. 

One report states that when General Fransico Pancho Villa wanted to impress American President Woodrow Wilson by defeating Mexican President Carranza, Villa consulted Walker as to whether his timing was right for a raid on the town of Ojinaga. During the Mexican Revolution, Ojinaga was the scene of the Battle of Ojinaga. That battle was between Pancho Villa's revolutionary troops and the Mexican government. Walker is said to have advised Villa on his strategy for the attack. 

Knowing how close Walker and Villa were on a personal level, it's not difficult to understand Walker's article below. Walker's admiration for Villa is obvious when he wrote the following article about Villa's death in 1923. Below is an El Paso Times article from 1923 by Associated Press reporter Norman Walker:

Pancho Villa, Who Lived by the Pistol and Died by it, Passes Into Mexico History

El Paso Times
July 21, 1923

By NORMAN WALKER

PANCHO VILLA, the Robin Hood of Mexico, was a strange combination of horse sense and impulsiveness which made him one of the most unique characters Mexico ever produced. A mountain man with an ability to ride, shoot and swear, Villa learned his military strategy in the hard school of experience when little more than a boy in the Sierra Madres of western Chihuahua.

The story of why Villa turned bandit has many variations. The accepted one is that he sought to avenge a wrong done his sister by an officer high in the ranks of the Diaz federal army. Killing the officer, Villa was pursued into the mountain district of western Chihuahua, where he lived the life of a bandit until Madero started his revolution in 1910, when Villa came down with a few followers and joined the little leader from Monterey who upset the old order of things in Mexico and started that county on its ten years of revolution and bloodshed.

Appears at El Paso

Villa first appeared on the El Paso border early in 1911, when Madero showed up opposite the smelter. At that time he was a colonel and attracted no more attention than did Rauol Madero, Garibaldi, Roque Gonzalez Garza, Eduardo Hay and the other Madero leaders. Villa was a colonel in the Madero revolutionary army and had a command of his former mountain men in camp near the old acequia madre on the Mexican side of the river. 

Villa attracted a little local fame to himself by shooting a deserter who attempted to swim the river and escape and by threatening to kill Garibaldi, commander of the foreign legion, in the Hotel Sheldon lobby. C.E. (Henry) Kelly, then mayor, persuaded Villa to surrender his pistol and prevented a killing in Madero’s staff. Villa took part in the battle of Juarez May 8, 9 and 10, 1911, and was given a major portion of the credit for capturing the town, as he led the hardest fighting in the vicinity of the monument during the three days battle.

Loyal to Madero

With all his faults, Villa remained loyal to Madero to the end. There was a strange attachment between the under-sized provisional president and the big, broad shouldered mountain man who was one of the bravest fighters. Villa prevented a mutiny among Madero’s forces in Juarez after the capture of that town in 1911 by declaring he would attack the mutineers led by Pascual Orozco. 

After Madero pardoned Villa and permitted him to escape from the penitentiary in Mexico City, this attachment became almost an obsession with Villa. It took the form of a hatred for the “red flaggers” who made up Orozco’s revolutionary forces opposing Madero’s army. He killed all the prisoners he took, placed a premium on Orozco’s head and always was bitter in his denunciation of those leaders as “traitors and cowards.”

When Madero was killed in Mexico, Villa, who was in El Paso at the time, after having been liberated from prison in Mexico City, again took the field with a few men, five mules and two sacks of flour. He crossed between El Paso and Columbus, N.M., went to the Palomas country of western Chihuahua, where he organized a force and made his first stand at San Andreas, Chih.

Broke and Discouraged

A story that Villa told at the time was generally accepted by his friends. After he reached El Paso from Mexico City and was staying at the old Hotel Mexico on South El Paso street, broke and discouraged, he said he was going to quit fighting and was trying to get a job as section foreman on the Southern Pacific railroad. 

He said his wife, Luz Corral de Villa, was about to become a mother and he wished to bring her to the United States, take her with him to Arizona or California and settle down to the quiet life of a family man. When the news of Madero’s death reached him, he sent out a rallying cry to his men, then living on the border; crossed the line and started a movement which finally resulted in the overthrow of the Huerta government.

Villa’s character was a peculiar complex. All the stories told of his lust were mostly imaginary. Villa’s greatest weakness was his uncontrollable temper. From a sane man, laughing and joking with his friends, Villa could turn into a maniac at a moment’s notice. 

His eyes would become blood-shot, he would pitch his voice several tones higher and he would pull his pistol and fire at the slightest provocation. All of the bloody deeds attributed to him were directly traceable to his temper, and Villa often admitted his weakness when talking of his career.

Friend of the Poor

Villa was a friend of the poor. He distributed many thousands of dollars to the poor people of the country over which he ruled like an emperor. When he captured a town, he would open up some of the stores, give the poor people permission to help themselves and would often issue food and clothing to the poor who constantly besieged him at his headquarters for aid. 

At one time he kept a number of the orphan sons of his former commanders in school and one of the first things he did at Canutillo after taking possession of the ranch which the Mexican government purchased for him was to set up a school house and invite all of the children of his former followers to attend school.

Personally Villa was sloppy in dress, rarely wearing a uniform and then only under protest. He proffered an old, sun faded khaki shirt, a pair of hand-me-down trousers which puckered around his ankles, high-toed tan shoes and a Stetson hat, almost snow white in color. He never wore a white collar and seldom wore a tie. He said they choked him and hurt his neck. 

When he made a contract with a moving picture company to film some pictures on a fifty-fifty basis, one of the stipulations was that he was to wear a fawn-colored uniform, cap and sword. He wore it once and was so disgusted with himself he never wore it again. When he went to Fort Bliss with Obregon to call on General Pershing, Villa left his hat on in General Pershing’s quarters. He was told to take off his hat as he was in the general’s home.

Keeps His Hat On

“You Americans don’t take off your hats when you come to my headquarters, do you? He answered, and left his hat on the back of his head.

That visit to the border was the last one Villa made as person grata. He and Obregon, both Carranza commanders of the constitutionalist army, were making an inspection trip of the Mexican border garrisons, and made the trip in a private car from El Paso to Nogales. They were given reception at every town on the American side and were apparently good friends. Obregon then was a striking looking man and Villa felt ill at ease beside the Sonora leader, who had the polish and training of a well-to-do ranchero. 

A short time after their return Villa, and Obregon became bitter enemies, Villa declared the Carranza banner for his own revolution, started to shoot Obregon at Chihuahua City, freed him only to regret it a few hours later and started a special train after him as Obregon fled south and escaped. Villa admitted that this was a tactical error, as Obregon later defeated him at Celays and broke the backbone of the Villa revolution.

Denies Columbus Raid

Villa and his leading generals always insisted that he was not present at the Columbus raid. According to the most authentic story obtainable at the time I visited Villa at his ranch, Villa claimed to have been ill at Paloma Springs, below the Columbus border and that Pablo Lopez, brother of Villa’s second in command, led the raid into Columbus which caused the Pershing punitive expedition. I talked to his general at the ranch and on the train and all told the same story, although many in Columbus claimed to have seen Villa.

After the Pershing expedition Villa was very bitter toward Americans. He was approached by Americans who offered to finance a moving picture of him and his men, to be taken soon after the surrender at San Pedro. Villa declared empathatically that he never wanted his pictures shown before an American audience and said he did not want any Americans to approach him on the subject. Later he was said to have reconsidered this ultimatum, but he had ceased to be a front page story and the moving picture company interested in making the picture declined to go ahead with their part of the proposed agreement.

Grows Fat as Farmer

He grew fat after quitting the field and when I last saw him at the Canutillo ranch he weighed more than 300 pounds and lost much of the resiliency he had when as leader of the north, he would outride, outshoot and outmarch any man in his command. Villa liked to eat good food, American preferred, and he said one of the reasons for considering the offer for him to retire was the fact that he could get the kind of food he liked best after a monotonous fare of beans, tortillas and chili in the field.

With the passing of Villa the most picturesque character Mexico has produced in modern times takes his place in the history of the war-torn republic. Feeling toward Villa among the Mexican people is divided. To some he was a hero, patriot and a liberator, while to others, who had lost their families and fortunes at Villa’s hands, he was a bandit of the worst breed.

Hates White Collars

Illiterate, he had a grudge against the order of things in Mexico which deprived him of the education he felt he was entitled to. Hating the white-collar crowd, he took his revenge in killing, looting and slaying. Yet I have often thought that Villa, according to his own lights, believed he was a patriot and that he was doing something for his country. 

There was no question about his military genius. Whatever Napoleon, Grant and Lee had, Villa had in less degree. He knew instinctively how to maneuver men to the disadvantage of the enemy. Whether this was a heritage from some Aztec ancestor, or whether he acquired it dodging federal troops in the Chihuahua mountains, will never be know. But his gift for leadership was unquestioned, and his record of 10 years in the field as a military leader proves it. What his place in Mexican history will be, it is impossible to tell now. But Villa will live in the hearts of the poor people of Mexico as half saint, half devil.

Pancho Villa lived by the pistol and died by it. Thus endeth the chapter of the most interesting character of contemporary Mexican history.

-- end of El Paso Times article from 1923.

It is not too hard to see the admiration that Walker had for Villa. Yes, so much so that Walker started his article by calling Villa "the Robin Hood of Mexico" and then finished his article by comparing Villa to Napoleon and Ulysses S. Grant.

If you notice, there is no mention of Villa ordering the January 11th, 1916, mass murder of eighteen Americans. That was one of his attempts at getting the attention of President Woodrow Wilson. The massacre took place when Pancho Villa stopped a train at Santa Ysabel in Chihuahua state. He had his men force 19 American mining engineers who worked for American Smelting and Refining Company to get off the train. He then had them all shot as a message for President Wilson.

One of the men survived by playing dead after the initial volley of fire. He rolled off into some bushes and Villa's men figured he was dead so they didn't go after him. As for the rest, they weren't as fortunate.

During the massacre, Villa had his second in command Pablo Lopez loot the train and find Americans to kill. Lopez was heard saying, "If you want to see some fun, watch us kill these Gringoes."

Villa had the 19 Americans shot and then shot again. It's true. Villa had Lopez order the "tiro de gracia" which was to shoot those who were still alive. Villa's men placed the ends of their rifles at their victims' heads and fired to put the wounded men out of their misery as one would do to a wounded animal.

As I said before, Walker conveniently left that massacre out when talking glowingly about his friend. Of course if one uses newspaper periodicals of historical information, it's reporting like this in Walker's 1923 article that skews history. For those who take such articles as true without researching such things as who Walker was to Villa, this information can lead someone to think that Villa was someone that he really wasn't. Then again, that's the whole point of Walker's article. It's to paint his friend in a different light with the hopes of fooling people.

Fact is, Walker's account is a great example of having to take things with a grain of salt and work to verify such stories. When reading something like the death of Villa as told by Walker, or say for example reading the newspaper accounts of what took place at the shootout near the OK Corral by the pro-Earp Tombstone Epitaph versus reading the accounts as published by the pro-Clanton Tombstone Nugget, one has to try to ferret out the truth the best one can. And frankly, sometimes it's not easy.

The good thing is that some newspapers simply didn't have a dog in the fight and really play things straight. The sad thing is that not all news reports can be trusted. Yes, no different than reading newspapers or watching the news on television today.

Tom Correa