Order 2326078
Order 2326078
Order 2326078
Title: Latin America and amp: American media on Rodrigo Rosengber’s death
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Introduction
The story was written by journalist ‘David Grann’, after Rodrigo Rosenberg was murdered. He
was a prominent lawyer in Guatemala. This story was published in April 4th 2011in the New
Yorker magazine which is an American magazine. The American media did tend to ignore this
matter because there was little coverage and maybe it’s because it did not involve their country.
Thus this shows that the Latin America Media covered this case into details from the beginning
to the end, while the America media got interested after the protests had began while the
Later the Latin American media reported that the investigations that were carried out by
the UN and the FBI showed that the president was not responsible for his murder. The people
responsible were his ex-wife cousins, Jose Ramon Francisco and Jose Estuardo Valdez Paiz who
were both pharmaceutical owners. Rosenberg had asked them to help him to find out the killers
of Musa and his daughter (Andrade Kara. 2010). The video made by Rosenberg before his death
led to many protesters going to the street demanding for president Colon resignation.
According to David Grann, Rodrigo was aware of his coming death because of the
investigation that he was carrying out. All this happened when there was great violence in
Guatemala, because of the civil war where very many people were killed, and even after the civil
war, the killings increased ad the murderers got away with it. The government forces killed
Ninety percent of the people killed because it was corrupt and if anyone tried to investigate, he or
All this began when an immigrant called Khalil Musa and his daughter, Marjorie was
killed. Khalil was shot nine times, by what seemed as the government forces, and a, stray bullet
Running head: Communications 3
hit his daughter. Rodrigo was in despair because he had a secret affair with Marjorie, and he was
about to marry her. He knew that Musa’s murder would never be investigated properly because
the criminals would block the investigation, or destroy the evidence and even threaten the
Rodrigo approached Mendizabal who was a long-term friend, to help him investigate the
death of Musa. Mendizabal was an intelligent spy, and Rosenberg obtained a security video
outside the Musas factory, which showed how the assassination was executed. As they began to
dig deeper into the investigation, started receiving threats, and he always felt that his apartment
was always under surveillance, or he was being followed. Medizabal even advised Musa to leave
the country, but he could not do so, because he was about to uncover Musas assassins. On
Sunday May 2009 in the morning, Rodrigo was shot dead as he was riding his bicycle (Grann,
2011). Due to the death treats he had made a video which said that the president was the murder
and other, injustices he had committed which was uploaded in the YouTube.
This matter was covered widely by the Latin America media where it used books,
newspapers, TV, and internet to pass this information to the public. Internet was the most
powerful tool that it used for transfer of information because of its many advantages, as opposed
to other means of communication. Some of these advantages include faster and cheaper transfer
of data over long distances. Thus, this case could not have got all this attention if this video was
not posted on YouTube, because television and radio coverage is mainly within the country
Based on how information moves in the internet with the help of social networks and
smart phones technology, the new technology and media involved in this case and the whole
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official investigation after his death according to the New Yorker magazine were, the use of the
security camera outside Musas factory that showed how Musa and his daughter were
assassinated presented good evidence that the hit squad had military training. In addition, before
his death, Rosenberg, made a video, which was later uploaded in YouTube, which was watched
by millions of people showing how the president was responsible for his murder.
The style the New Yorker writer uses to combine different elements taken from fiction to
create a story with suspense, a plot also interesting characters that entice the reader to read more
(Hernández, 2010) is that the writer introduces each character, and gives the descriptions of the
character well enough that the reader feels that he already knows that character. The writer
describes the motivations and intensions of the characters, which creates suspense. The Writer
gives the status details to the surroundings or how the event as happened in the story which
Most of articles written in the newspapers these days are written not only with the
intension of informing, but also to entertain or to captivate the readers. I have read many times
where the writer describes an incident, by details which includes; the emotional responses of the
people who witnessed that incident which creates suspense and the urge to read more and more
(Reynolds, 2011).
New journalism takes the form of intensive reporting where fiction is used to form a
captivating story with the aim of not only passing information but also entertaining the readers.
The reporters gather information firsthand, i.e. they have to be the eyewitnesses. This has the
advantage that the reader reads the whole story and ends up understanding information better. It
also creates suspense, which gives the reader urge to read more and more. The disadvantage is
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that it wastes the reader’s time because it is not straight to the point and there might be some few
exaggerations, which may mislead the audience (Fieser, 2010). Old journalism had only the main
intension of passing the information to the readers as it is. There is no use of captivating
language, and it has the advantage that it saves the readers’ time because it is straight to the
point. It has the disadvantage that it is not captivating thus, readers tend to ignore much detail
because it’s boring and no suspense to create the urge to read more.
The goal of the New Yorker article was to pass information and also to entertain the
reader. This is necessary because most of the readers read the newspapers for leisure thus they
want to be entertained. Thus, the writer has written this piece in a way that it shows the reader
what is happening, while creating drummer and also suspense on the case, which keeps the
entertained. This is evident because, do not stop reading the story after getting the necessary
information, but take time to go through the whole story (The Economist, 2009).
There are four main features of the new journalism according to Tom Wolfe and E.W.
Johnson, which include the scene-by-scene construction where the reporter does not rely on
second or third hand information, because most likely it will be biased. Thus, the reporters have
to witness the occurrence of an event firsthand before they frame a story for the readers.
The reporter also records dialogue as much as possible through quotations. Through this,
the reporter is able to establish different characters of people in the story, which involves the
reader through creating mental pictures and easy understanding (HuffPost News, 2011).
The journalist does not only report to give information but should also enable readers to
have the real feeling of how the events took place also feel that that know the people who were
involved in that incident. This can be done by describing the motivations of the characters or
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maybe what the characters are thinking at that moment. Thus, this includes a bit of fiction or
simply the aim is not only to report, but also to entertain the readers.
The journalist in the New Yorker also includes status details in their report, which
include what and how the surrounding of a particular place is? Or what people in that specific
area involved with? Thus, the reader is able to see people as they really are.
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References
Andrade K. (2010). Quarterly Americas: Murder Accusations Against the Guatemalan President:
http://www.americasquarterly.org/rodrigo-rosenberg-guatemala
Grann, D. (2011). The New Yorker. A murder foretold. Retrieved on 22nd May 2011 from
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all
Solis, J. (2009). Guatemalans demonstrate against the Government because of the murder of
http://www.demotiximages.com/news/guatemalans-demonstrate-against-goverment-
because-murder-lawyer-rodrigo-rosenberg
Fieser, E. (2010). The Guatemalan Who Ordered His Own Murder. Retrieved on 22nd May 2011
from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953486,00.html?xid=rss-
mostpopularemail&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed
%3A+time%2Fmostemailed+%28TIME%3A+Most+Emailed+Story+of+the+Day%29
HuffPost News. (2011). The New Yorker Examines The Ultimate Political Conspiracy.
rosenberg-murdered_n_841365.html
Hernández, J. P. (2010). What Does the Rosenberg Case Show Us? Retrieved on 22nd May 2011
from http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/4144
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Reynolds, L. (2010). Guatemala: Commission finds Rodrigo Rosenberg arranged his own
12072264/GUATEMALA-COMMISSION-FINDS-RODRIGO-ROSENBERG.html
The Economist. (2009). Murder in Guatemala: Murder foretold: A tale of murder that may have
http://www.economist.com/node/13680850