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The demands on the press in El Salvador are especially trying because coverage of events may be more important than the events themselves. Mistaking a firefight for a massacre, for example, could have an incalculable effect on American policy—and, given the importance of U.S. aid, on the eventual outcome in El Salvador. This responsibility weighs heavily on many correspondents. Shirley Christian of the Miami Herald, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for her coverage of Latin America, has become even more influential among her peers since she published an article in the Washington Journalism Review detailing the failure of leading newspapers to probe the nature of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua until too late. Says Christian of the journalist's responsibility in El Salvador: "People here will be left with the solution partly or wholly created by us—not just the American Government but the American press. Then we will all leave when the story disappears."
—By William A. Henry III. Reported by Harry Kelly/San Salvador