Latin American & Caribbean History

Jacqueline Charles, of the Miami Herald, is the newspaper's Caribbean Correspondent. and is a native Haitian. Though the article does mention that statistics come from "recent polls", it is not said where or when the polls were taken. The article also seems a bit biased towards the people who are frustrated about the elections and the government, and barely mentions those who believe the opposite. The article was very recently published (on Oct15, 2010), and seems to cover quite a bit of information within this fairly narrow topic.

"Race to the bottom"

Though this article has no specified author, the site is obviously trustworthy from the copyright at the bottom of the article (Copyright 2010 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.).  The article is clearly written, tapping evidence from officials to support the story.  The information is broken down and covered thoroughly, even though the article itself is quite short. 

This article by the CNN Wire Staff is quite short, yet the writing is clear and free of grammatical errors.  CNN is a trusted news source and has always provided the facts.  This article uses many quotations from officials closely connected with the incident as well as some facts to provide the story with logos.  The most recent update was today (the 17th of October).  The only potential problem with this article could be that its length, which is made up for in the clear and concise information.

Timothy Gatto is a well respected member of the Liberal Party of America. Because of his political views, this article is biased, but there is still accurate information and a perspective on what is happening in Latin America. The date stamp is recent, and there is more information on the author with links to an external site.

While I have never heard of this site before, the article is written well by author Andres Oppenheimer who is a Miami Herald syndicated columnist and a member of The Miami Herald team that won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. There are no spelling errors, and the information is organized in a logical manner. He sites outside sources, and structures his ideas well. All this leads me to believe this is credible source.

While this source has no specific author, it is published on a notoriously reliable source The Economist. The article outlines where Latin America falls short in its economic growth, and reason why it continues to do so. It contains informative bar graphs which are a nice addition help illustrate the article's objectives.

The author of this article, J. Preston Whitt, is a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C, according to verifiable sources. This article is informative and has lots of useful information about both the past and present of socialism, as well as an extremely current date stamp and verified sources that are cited in a biography with an external link. It is organized and flows nicely, and has links to other reputable sources with similar topics.

There is a clear author, and the website looks like the site of a fairly legitimate magazine, "The American." The information has no basic errors, and while it is clearly an opinion piece, the facts check out against other sites I saw. The article was published in 2009, and it covers a good scope.

The article has two very clear authors, each with a mini bio to establish their credentials. There are no basic errors but there is no indication as to where they got their facts, and it is clearly presented as an opinion piece. The scope of the info is good, but it isn't current as it was published in 2001.

Upon first glance, this article seems very informative because it uses quotations and even provides a video companion. However upon closer review, I realized that the author's name is not published, which raises concerns about the legitimacy of the article. The news shown elsewhere on the site was relevant and current, which caused me to trust its credibility in the end. The author clearly supports the Chilean miners and the government's efforts to save them. Also, the article was written a couple of days ago, meaning it is up to date and can be relied on.

Karl Penhual, the co-author of this article, is a very respected video journalist for CNN. He is a regular on Anderson Cooper 360 and search results show he is well-known by many news sources. The article is mainly factual, but the authors do use direct quotations from the miners, showing concrete evidence and giving substance to the story. Given CNN tries to remain unbiased, the article does not give any opinions on the story, meaning little personal bias is visible.

Mery Vaca is a respected journalist who focuses on Bolivia. The page is in Spanish, but it appears to be grammatically correct and BBC Mundo is usually very high quality. She quotes activists in the issue and various sources she uses for her statistics. It was last edited on September 29, 2010. This page provides facts and focuses on a single organization for its information. It has a wide scope of the information it provides.

This article does not site specific authors but it does have places to email the author and contact the site's administrators. Again, the site is in Spanish, but the sources are reliable (WHO, Intervida.org) and the information is confirmed in other sites I've seen. There are some Google ads on the site, most likely to support its upkeeping. The article was last edited on January 24, 2007 and has not been updated since. The site is written for women, so it is focused on the Intervida organization to help women and has some scary statistics to tell women to be careful.

Written by Dennis Rosen, a pediatric pulmonologist at the Chidlren's Hospital in Boston, for the New York Times, this article is a well written account of a doctor trying to save lives in Haiti. As the article is mostly personal, there is little factual information. The objective of the article seems to be to give readers hope that Haiti is improving. Published on Sept 27, 2010, the article is fairly recent.