Yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer featured a horrifying story about the attempt by Wal-Mart to despoil Mexico's ancient architectural heritage:

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico - A Wal-Mart store rising near the 2,000-year-old pyramids of the Teotihuacan Empire has ignited the wrath of Mexican conservationists and nationalists who say the U.S. retailer is destroying their culture at the foot of one of Mexico's greatest treasures.

Since news broke in May of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s plan to construct a 71,902-square-foot store near the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, the entryway of the primordial city has turned into a carnival of demonstrators, most protesting the plans though some welcoming the 180 jobs the store will bring.

Demonstrators wearing long feathered headdresses, bright indigenous costumes, and loincloths dance around fires spewing incense and implore gods and the government to halt construction. Signs shout "Yankee Imperialism," "Foreign Invasion, Get Out!" and "We'll Be Here Until Victory."

The store, with 236 parking spots, is to open any day, but protests are snowballing and its future is uncertain.

On Wednesday, protesters blocked the entrance of the National Institute for Archaeology and History in Mexico City because it gave Wal-Mart its permit. They remained there Thursday, preventing employees from reporting for work.

Last week, 63 prestigious artists and intellectuals, in a letter published in Mexican newspapers, asked President Vicente Fox to stop the structure. They see it as a battle pitting Mexico's heritage against encroaching U.S. influence. Wal-Mart is already Mexico's largest retailer, with 664 stores in 66 cities, with sales of $12 billion.

"The struggle for Teotihuacan is a war of symbols," they wrote. "The symbol of ancient Mexico against the symbol of transnational commerce; genetically modified corn against the Feathered Serpent (the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan in Mayan) and Mexico's traditional foods; the Day of the Dead against Halloween; skeletons against jack-o-lanterns."

Mysteriously abandoned around 700 A.D., Teotihuacan was called "the place where the gods were created" by the Aztecs, who re-encountered the city in 1300. The ethnicity of the builders is unknown.

"Don't small towns have the right to have access to the same level of quality goods that Mexicans have in larger cities?" Wal-Mart said in a statement late Wednesday. "Today, residents of Teotihuacan have to travel 15 miles to get to the closest department store."

Opponents see Wal-Mart's modern capitalism as an assault on native culture.

"Wal-Mart's aim is to destroy our identity, replace our symbols with the dollar sign," said Jaime Lagunez, 44, a molecular biologist. "The construction at Teotihuacan was made by the people who built their homes and temples with dignity."

Has the molecular biologist read recent archaeological reports like this?

Fifty miles north of modern Mexico City stands the ancient site of Teotihuacan. Built more than 2,000 years ago, the city’s colossal pyramids of the sun and moon are the largest pre-Columbian monuments in the New World. But who built and lived in these metropolis held sacred by the later Aztecs, and what are we to make of the recently discovered remains of 200 bound and sacrificed prisoners of war? Today, archaeologists believe that this ancient site may have been the seat of a violent militaristic cult whose rampages were determined by the position of the planet Venus.

But why quibble over history when symbology is at stake?

In any case, the plan to build a Wal-Mart at the foot of the pyramids sounded awful when I read about it -- and the point was emphasized by the Inquirer's accompanying cartoon showing the tacky new Wal-Mart sitting atop the Pyramid of the Sun.

Still, I wanted more information about the exact location of the store, because I enjoy gathering as many facts as I can before I write. I found a Google cache of this article, which includes these additional facts:

The warehouse-style store is located near the ancient citadel, within the limits of San Juan Teotihuacan, a town that has grown steadily over the past 20 years, to its current population of more than 45,000.

A recent report by the Mexican chapter of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an adviser to UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), states that the Wal-Mart store meets the requirements outlined by international treaties.

But, the report adds, local authorities should take a close look at urban planning in the area, where it says there are already "serious alterations" of the landscape due to urban sprawl.

Wal-Mart won municipal permits and authorisation from Mexico's National Institute of Archaeology and History to build the new discount store.

In response to demonstrations and protests by local residents, which included the occupation of the construction site by activists in August to try to bring work to a halt, the government of Vicente Fox and local municipal officials agreed to review the permits -- and endorsed them.

Why didn't the Inquirer tell its readers that the Wal-Mart is being built in a town of 45,000 plus people? Or that many of the locals want it?

Are symbols more important than facts?

UPDATE: Commenter Bill Peschel's good faith attempt to correct me about a "fact" raises a disturbing question which only highlights my point.

He accurately cited this news report, for the proposition that the Wal-Mart is actually "a half-mile" away from the pyramids.

But was that report accurate itself?

I try to research these things but alas! There's a conflict in the reports over which I have no control.

I'd read that the distance was 1.6 kilometers (which I rounded off to a mile), but Bill Peschel's correction led me to look for something more precise. I found this:

The store will be located some 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the Pyramid of the Moon and 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Pyramid of the Sun and, according to authorities, "abides" by regulations and the law.

I may have understated the distance, if anything (although my point remains the same). Has news reporting become so untrustworthy that bloggers will have to travel to described places and take accurate measurements of distance?

Are laws of physics and math to be suspended in the name of symbology?

Regardless of bias, you'd think they'd at least get things like distances between places right.

Sheesh!

NOTE: The above quote comes from a supposedly reliable, nonpartisan source, which describes itself thusly:

CountryWatch.com is an information provider for schools, universities, libraries and individuals who need up-to-date information and news on the countries of the world and for the public and private sector organizations with global operations and interests. The management of CountryWatch.com has extensive international business and academic experience and, using this experience, has created, in a concise and useful form, a key set of political, economic, and business information, daily news and data for its clients in the form of Country ReviewsTM, the Country WireTM and CountryWatch Data.

(And I thought I was cynical about news reports before I started blogging.....)

MORE: I think I should stress that the distance involved here is hardly a minor "detail" -- as the reporters might claim in their own defense. The proximity to the pyramids goes to the very essence of the controversy! The cartoon which the Inquirer displayed showing a Wal-Mart on top of the pyramid illustrates graphically that distance is the very heart of the story -- and that exaggeration of distance is a vital part of the protesters' claims. So why did the Inquirer fail to even report the actual distance? Why would another "report" claim it's a half-mile?

Forgive me for saying this, but if I didn't know any better, I'd almost think the demonstrators themselves were writing the news accounts.

UPDATE: It should be noted that reporter Susana Hayward (who wrote the above story) is not strictly an Inquirer reporter, but is Knight-Ridder's Mexico Correspondent. I point this out because I realize that the Inquirer editors themselves may have no editorial control over the content of her stories. It may be that no one does. If that's the case, considering the number of readers whose view of the world is formed and shaped by the Knight-Ridder chain, it's understandable why so many people keep raising questions about media accountability and power. Why is Ms. Hayward in charge of telling millions of busy Americans what to think? The reason I think this is important is that had I been too busy to check the facts yesterday, I'd have been as outraged as I was over the Iraqi Museum looting story -- which turned out to be false. If Knight-Ridder's reports from Mexico are questionable, what are the implications for reports about Iraq?