Editing Raymond Bonner (section)

===Reporting on El Salvador===
Bonner is best known as one of two journalists (the other being [[Alma Guillermoprieto]] of ''[[The Washington Post]]'') who broke the story of the [[El Mozote massacre]], in which some 900 villagers, mostly women, children and elderly, at [[El Mozote]], [[El Salvador]], were slaughtered by the [[Atlácatl Battalion]], a unit of the Salvadoran army in December 1981. A ''[[New York Times]]'' staff reporter at the time, Bonner was smuggled by Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ([[FMLN]]) rebels to visit the site approximately a month after the massacre took place.

When the ''Post'' and ''Times'' simultaneously broke the story on January 27, 1982, the US government and its allies at the editorial page of the [[Wall Street Journal]] dismissed its central claims as exaggerations. This whitewashing effort was initiated because Bonner's report seriously undermined efforts by the [[Reagan administration]] to bolster the human rights image of the right-wing Salvadoran regime, which the US government was supporting with large amounts of military aid in an effort to destroy the FMLN. The Atlacatl Battalion that perpetrated the massacre was an elite Salvadoran army unit that had been trained in the US at US military bases, and armed and directed by US military advisors operating in El Salvador.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_c8umnadLwkC "A Year of Reckoning: El Salvador a Decade After the Assassination of Archbishop Romero"] Human Rights Watch, 1990, pp. 224-225</ref><ref>[http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_multi=PI|&p_product=PHNP&p_theme=phnp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=Title%28HOW%20U.S.%20ADVISERS%20RUN%20THE%20WAR%20IN%20EL%20SALVADOR%29%20AND%20date%28all%29&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22HOW%20U.S.%20ADVISERS%20RUN%20THE%20WAR%20IN%20EL%20SALVADOR%22%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no "HOW U.S. ADVISERS RUN THE WAR IN EL SALVADOR"] Philadelphia Inquirer, May 29, 1983</ref><ref>[http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html "LETTER DATED 29 MARCH 1993 FROM THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL"], S/25500, Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador, 1 Apr. 1993</ref> This was part of a larger US effort to conceal from the public the human rights abuses of the Salvadoran regime and its role in supporting it.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/how-us-actions-helped-hide-salvador-human-rights-abuses.html?pagewanted=all "How U.S. Actions Helped Hide Salvador Human Rights Abuses"] New York Times, March 21, 1993</ref> As a result of the controversy, escalated by the ''Wall Street Journal'', the ''New York Times'' removed Bonner from covering El Salvador and assigned him to the financial desk, and he eventually resigned. Also as a result of the controversy, according to journalists like [[Anthony Lewis]] and [[Michael Massing]] writing in the [[Columbia Journalism Review]], "other newspapers worried about looking soft on Communism and toned down their reporting from El Salvador."<ref>quoting Lewis, {{cite web|url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/changing-times-the-vindication-of-raymond-bonner/Content?oid=881757|title=Changing Times: The Vindication of Raymond Bonner|author=Michael Miner|date=April 15, 1993|publisher=Chicago Reader|accessdate=28 December 2014}}</ref> A forensic investigation of the massacre site years later confirmed the accuracy of his reporting.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/changing-times-the-vindication-of-raymond-bonner/Content?oid=881757|title=Changing Times: The Vindication of Raymond Bonner|author=Michael Miner|date=April 15, 1993|publisher=Chicago Reader|accessdate=28 December 2014}}</ref>
Bonner revisited El Mozote in 20, the subject of a documentary with RetroReport and Frontline. ..As Massacre Survivors Seek Justice, El Salvador Grapples With 1,000 Ghosts, by Retro Report https://www.retroreport.org/video/as-massacre-survivors-seek-justice-el-salvador-grapples-with-1-000-ghosts