How The Associated Press (AP) Gutted Its Own Scoop On The Venezuelan Coup D'etat

[Judi Lynn]

How The Associated Press (AP) Gutted Its Own Scoop On The Venezuelan Coup D'etat
By Jared Israel
www.emperors-clothes.com
(Posted 25 April 2002)

Does the Western media deliberately distort the news to serve the interests of the foreign policy establishments of the NATO countries, especially the US? Based on much research, Emperor's Clothes says: yes, but not entirely.

Journalists sometimes - perhaps often - write accurate pieces. However, when the issues are important, foreign policy stories get edited or replaced, with the end result supporting a slant which is so consistently in tune with the long-term goals of the US foreign policy elite that it is possible, by analyzing news stories, to predict positions which will be adopted by the US government. That is partly how we made the predictions in the article, "Why Does Washington Want Afghanistan?" Alas, those predictions have proven true. (1)

Every day we test the above-stated thesis using the excellent Lexis search engine. It enables us to scan millions of newspaper articles and TV news transcripts in seconds. We can focus on particular dates or periods of time. We can check for the presence or absence of certain words or phrases. In this way, we can fashion an hypothesis and test it - see if we are right about the line being taken by most or all the media. Or we can just "go fishing" and see what we find.

On April 13th, the Associated Press published what is by far the best - indeed, from what I've seen, the only - mainstream article reporting the massive police terror against pro-Chavez Venezuelans after the recent coup d'etat. It was a scoop. Below I have posted this dispatch, written by Christopher Toothaker.

Soon after AP sent out the Toothaker dispatch, they released a revised dispatch without Toothaker's account of police terror in poor neighborhoods. The new dispatch, by Andrew Selsky, retained only one thing from the original: the first part of an important paragraph was the same, but the second part was completely rewritten to reverse the meaning. All the original material in the Toothaker dispatch was removed. AP gutted their scoop.

AP dispatches are sent out to news media "outlets" around the world. Thus by April 14th, most of the important newspapers and TV stations had received two very different AP dispatches. The first (Toothaker) was detailed and refuted the official line on what happened in Venezuela. The second (Selsky) was general and supported the official line. This is as close to a scientific experiment as one could fashion to test our thesis that key media "outlets" censor themselves to support the US establishment's agenda.

Below is Toothaker's AP dispatch. It is most informative. Indeed, it is the only place, outside the pro-Chavez media and Websites critical of US foreign policy (likes ours) where you will find anything challenging the official story about what happened in Venezuela.

More:
http://www.trinicenter.com/world/venez/lessons8.shtml

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x555884

[Peace Patriot]

1. The Associated Pukes have been horrible on Latin America issues throughout

the remarkable leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America, beginning with the Venezuela people peacefully turning back a U.S. supported rightwing coup d'etat in 2002. It is no surprise to me that they deliberately edited out factual material about that seminal event--and, learning now, about WHAT they edited out--the police repression in poor neighborhoods that accompanied the coup attempt--makes the Venezuelans' achievement all the more impressive. They had elements of the military against them. They had rightwing rioters, thugs and probably hired shooters against them. They had the corpo-fascist media not just against them, but actively participating in the coup, within Venezuela, and aiding and abetting abroard. They had Catholic cardinals signing the "Carmona Decree" suspending the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and all civil rights. The official Church was against them. And they had police brutally trying to repress the peaceful rebellion that ultimately succeeded in restoring order--restoring their elected president to power, and restoring their Constitution. Despite these overwhelmingly unfavorable conditions, the Venezuelan people poured out of their hovels, in the tens of thousands--possibly as many as a million people--surrounded Miraflores Palace and demanded restoration of their government. This, and Chavez's refusal to resign, provided an opening for elements in the military that did not support the coup to take action.

I've been closely following news coverage of the Chavez government, and the election of leftist governments all over Latin America, since that event. And I have to argue with one statement in this article, that "Journalists sometimes - perhaps often - write accurate pieces." Perhaps the writer can be forgiven for this statement considering when it was written--in early 2002, prior to the Iraq War, in the early days of the wretched Bushwhack "war on terror," and prior to the leftist democracy revolution in Latin America that followed the Venezuelan democracy revolution. Since that time, I have found that corpo-fascist journalists--and I mean the whole lot of them--the New York Slimes, the Associated Pukes, Rotters, the BBCons, et al--NEVER write "accurate pieces" about Latin America. NEVER!