Peter McFarren, the longtime Associated Press correspondent in Bolivia, recently took a step that has nothing to do with his journalistic duties:
Lobbying the government.
McFarren made a presentation to the Bolivian senate, on behalf of the Bolivian Hydro-Resources Corp., for a $78 million water project. The result, the AP confirmed yesterday, is that McFarren has resigned.
McFarren's extracurricular efforts were disclosed by journalist Al Giordano, a former Boston Phoenix writer who recently launched NarcoNews.com. "Imagine if a congressional correspondent for a major Washington daily was found lobbying the U.S. Congress on behalf of a private industry project," he said. "The problem is, U.S. correspondents in Latin America receive very little scrutiny."
AP spokesman Jack Stokes said McFarren voluntarily submitted his resignation last week and that it becomes effective Nov. 1. He declined to answer questions about the apparent conflict of interest, saying: "At this point we're still conferring on that. We're not saying anything publicly."
McFarren, who was born in Bolivia and holds dual U.S. citizenship, doubles as president of the Quispus Foundation, which has built museums in that country. He was in Venezuela yesterday and did not respond to a message left at his hotel.
In an interview with Giordano's Narco News Bulletin, McFarren said he sees no conflict because he is not being paid for his advocacy of the water project. But he acknowledged that the project would "set up a fund for culture, and Quispus would receive the profits."
"I've made a point of never writing about anything that I am involved with," McFarren told the Web site. He said his "boss"--the AP correspondent in Chile--was "aware" of his work for the water company. "As a citizen I have a right to do nonprofit and pro bono work," he said.
Steve Rendall, a spokesman for the liberal group Fairness and Accuracy in Media, called for AP to launch an internal investigation. He said wire service executives should "do what it says in their code of ethics, which is to report about their own personnel and their own conflicts."
The ethics code, written by the AP Managing Editors association, says a news organization should "report matters regarding itself or its personnel with the same vigor and candor as it would other institutions or individuals."
Given the nature of his job, McFarren has often reported on the Bolivian government. In an Oct. 1 dispatch from La Paz, he described a breakdown in negotiations between the cabinet and Indian farmers whose protests on behalf of land reform had paralyzed parts of the country and left at least 10 people dead.
In his Sept. 14 slide-show presentation to the Bolivian senate, Narco News reports, McFarren said the first phase of the project would pump water to a copper mine in Chile.
The Web site says McFarren is "a near mythical player in the highest levels of Bolivian society. It is not unusual for him to be the subject of press coverage himself as he rubs elbows socially with the Divine Caste of La Paz."
