Media War Against Venezuela Continues

[Judi Lynn]

December 05, 2013
Fear of Socialist Revolution

Media War Against Venezuela Continues
by MARIA PAEZ VICTOR

Since the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1999 there has been antipathy and deliberate media distortion of the political events in Venezuela.

Last Sunday, the Toronto Star (newspaper that self-identifies as liberal, broad thinking, progressive) published a defamatory article about the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. Once again the Canadian press goes on the attack against Venezuela, ridiculing and misrepresenting its president. And if at any time you thought that it was the personality of President Chávez that offended the world press, think again because all that media aggression now focuses on his successor, President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro is a tall, dark, handsome man, a good orator, intelligent and friendly, but he is not charismatic like Chávez. But who could possibly be like Chávez? He was a singularity. Maduro is the first to admit it and so repeats that he is not Chávez, but with the slogan “We are all Chávez” he spurs solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution of his government.

The Toronto Star is worried about inflation in Venezuela – but did it worry in the decade of the 1970’s when inflation jumped from 7.6% to 20.4%? Or that in the decade of the 80’s the average inflation rate was 19.4% until it reached 47.4% in the decade of the 90’s?[1] And what world newspaper or politician at that time forecasted with undisguised glee the ruin of the Venezuelan economy? None. Which newspaper denounced the immoral excesses – mistresses, drinking, fraud and corruption- of presidents Betancourt, Leoni, Caldera y Carlos Andrés Pérez? None.

But now, President Maduro is ridiculed for his symbolic language and, curiously, BECASUE HE IS NOT CHAVEZ

~snip~

Corruption in the Venezuelan private sector works like this. It is an oil economy, the private sector is not the main sources of income, and instead of investing in their own country, the private sector prefers the comfort of importing, and depending on government largess. If Venezuela let the bolívar float in the international currency market, there would be a spectacular exodus of capital because that class that believes it is “capitalist” is not. In truth, it is a bourgeois, parasitic, rentist class that produces nothing.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/05/media-war-against-venezuela-continues/

[Demeter]

1. Future of USA, writ large for all to read

unless we do a little reformation of our own, once-democracy.

[Scuba]

2. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.

Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.
Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized. Nationalized oil industry, must be demonized.

[ChangoLoa]

4. In Venezuela, oil industry was nationalized in 1976.

[Scuba]

5. Yep, the demonization's been going on a long time.

[polly7]

3. Does Venezuelan Television Provide Coverage That Opposes the Government?

......... Now, this indicates a stronger bias in the public media (towards the government) than in the private TV media (towards the opposition), in both the amount and tone of coverage of the two candidates. However, the Carter Center reports that the private TV media has, for “recent key newsworthy events” about 74 percent of the audience share for news, with the state share at just 26 percent. The Carter Center didn’t do the arithmetic, but using the 74-26 split for private vs. public TV would give Maduro about 54 percent of the election coverage and Capriles 44 percent.[1] However, there is reason to believe that this 74-26 split significantly overstates the audience share of state TV. As the Carter Center notes, a ranking of AGB Nielsen for all hours during January-June 2013 found the state TV with just an 8.4 percent audience share. Furthermore, the private and public channels examined in the Carter Center study make up just 54 percent of the total audience share for all programming. Among the remaining 46 percent are other private channels that show news, and whose coverage is very pro-opposition.[2]

In any case, statements about nearly all TV “controlled or allied with the government” are quite clearly false. The state TV can sing the praises of Maduro all day long, but the private media is reaching several times as many people with an opposite bias in their coverage

Finally, there are the cadenas, in which all stations are required to broadcast speeches by the President (this law predates the Chávez era). However, President Maduro did not use cadenas during the campaign period (April 2-11), and used only one before the launch of the campaign. The Carter Center monitoring period is from March 28 –April 16, and the report included four cadenas in the two days after the election. These should not have been included, since they were after the election; and they bias the results a bit, since they are counted in the election coverage.

Returning to the statements at the beginning, we can conclusively say that all of them are false. Leopoldo López is a politician, and so he can be forgiven for hyperbole (like right-wing critics of President Obama in the United States, who call him a “socialist dictator”). But the New York Times and CPJ should be more careful not to present false claims as fact.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66422.shtml

[Paolo123]

6. In the airport yesterday I noticed the front page of the Wall Street Journal...

The big page one article was Venezuela. In the Wall Street Journal? WTF?

Clearly the media knows what it is supposed to do.