Rough guide

WHA-TV producer Rick Rockwell talks to Listening In columnist George Vukelich about his Wisconsin Magazine documentary on a delegation of 30 Wisconsin residents that visited Nicaragua in January. "What we wanted to show in this documentary is the relationship between Wisconsin and Nicaragua," Rockwell says. "There are a lot of people in the state doing a lot of work in Nicaragua who don't make the headlines and don't make the 6 o'clock news. I think when you're on a guided tour like this, the Sandinistas are bound to show what's good about their revolution. For example, the tour was taken to see an ‘open prison farm.' Sure, it was a model, a showcase - 30 prisoners, three unarmed guards. That's why, as journalists, we tried to travel as much as possible without the guides and away from the tour. We filmed at an agricultural cooperative, and it wasn't a very efficient place. We went to a coffee plantation and the conditions there were among the worst I've seen in Central America." Now an associate professor at American University's School of Communications, Rockwell is the author of Latin Politics, Global Media and co-author of Media Power in Central America.