Marcela Berland
Marcela M. Berland is president and CEO of LatinInsights, a PR firm whose website states that they provide "Strategic Communications Media Relations, Business Strategies, Public Opinion and Market Research, Executive Communications Training and Speechwriting, Institutional Relations and Political Campaigns." She also has worked with Michael Berland her husband and a partner at Penn, Schoen & Berland.
A news release from the National Hispanic Press Foundation stated that "Marcela M. Berland, founder and president of LatinInsights, will speak about the cultural evolution within the Hispanic market and its impact on Hispanic publishers at the NAHP Inc. Hispanic Advertising Summit luncheon at the Intercontinental Hotel on January 7, 2004 in New York. "Everybody needs to know more about Hispanics," said Berland, who has extensive experience in research of the American-Hispanic market and Latin America, working for companies such as the Department of Commerce and Tourism of Florida, Univision, Discovery Communications and Pfizer. [1]
She was involved in the successful presidential campaign of Mexico's President Vicente Fox, appearing at a news event for the Fox front group Democracy Watch with Rob Allyn of Allyn & Company. Democracy Watch was a front group established in Mexico by political consultant Rob Allyn of Allyn & Company to advance the presidential campaign of successful PAN candidate Vicente Fox. The Narco News Bulletinwebsite contains a picture of Marcela Berland along with Rob Allyn at a Democracy Watch event.
On Sunday, July 9th, 2000 The Narco News Bulletin announced in bold headlines: "Texas GOP Political Consultant Rob Allyn Admits Covert Activity in Mexican Presidential Campaign. 'Democracy Watch' Director Boasts to Dallas Morning News that he was Fox's Consultant All Along. Fox has lost all moral and legal authority to expel human rights observers and journalists from Mexico." The gist of the story, as summarized and documented on The Narco News Bulletin website as a statement to Mexico President Vicente Fox, is: "Today's revelations in the Dallas Morning News, Mr. President-elect, are that: For three years you used foreigners -- and were used by them -- to participate in Mexican politics without disclosing that fact. During these three years you said nothing in defense of the hundreds of foreign human rights observers and journalists expelled from the country under Article 33 of the Mexican constitution (prohibiting direct involvement in Mexican political affairs, but not, legally speaking, journalism or human rights observance). That your foreign campaign operatives created a phony human rights group, "'Democracy Watch', to 'monitor' the elections. Therefore, when you arrive December 1st to the presidency, you will have already lost all legal and moral credibility to continue the policy of expelling and deporting foreign journalists and human rights observers from Chiapas, Guerrero or any other part of Mexico. And you can thank Rob Allyn for that." [2]
Marcella Berland's work for Sumate, an opposition group to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, was criticized as an attempt to illegally influence that country's election. According to the Associated Press on August 19, 2004, "A U.S. firm's exit poll that said President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum has landed in the center of a controversy following his resounding victory. 'Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez,' the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true -- Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote. Any casual observer of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections knows exit polls can at times be unreliable. But the poll has become an issue here because the opposition, which mounted the drive to force the leftist leader from office, insists it shows the results from the vote itself were fraudulent. The opposition also claims electronic voting machines were rigged, but has provided no evidence. Election officials banned publication or broadcast of any exit polls during the historic vote on whether to oust Chavez, a populist who has sought to help the poor and is reviled by the wealthy, who accuse him of stoking class divisions. But results of the Penn, Schoen & Berland survey were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed. It predicted just the opposite of what happened, saying 59 percent had voted in favor of recalling Chavez." [3]
Her biography on her website states "Ms. Berland, a native of Argentina, is a leading expert in strategic communications in the US-Hispanic and Latin America market. She has advised numbeous corporations on creating special research and polling reports on a broad ranges of issues. ... Ms. Berland has served as senior advisor to several Presidents in Latin America, includng Presidents Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Costa Rica; Leonel Fernandez, Dominican Republic; Carlos Andres Perez, Venezuela; President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada, Bolivia; Jaime Paz Zamora, Bolivia; and Rodrigo Borja, Ecuador." [4]
Contact information
LatinInsights llc
10 East 39th Street, Suite 906
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 683.1553; (917) 318-4365
Website: http://www.latininsights.com
External links
- An Open Letter to Rob Allyn, Doug Schoen and Marcela Berland from the Publisher of Narco News, Narco News Website, Summer, 2000
- Andrew Selsky, "U.S. polling firm lands in middle of Venezuelan referendum dispute", Associated Press, August 19, 2004.
