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The Price of Dumbing Down Venezuela
By Olivia Burlingame Goumbri
Znet
February 15, 2008

All is fair in love and war. No statement ever rang truer in describing the American media. From politicians to celebrities, and even on down to your average Joe; when the political pundits make their mind up about you, all bets are off. And as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez can attest, the American media can be cruel and downright vindictive.

Today, our national popular imagination is shaped by media outlets that are largely owned by a tiny group of corporations with annual revenues ranging between 10 and 40 billion dollars. In one of the most highly regarded scholarly works on media ownership, The New Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian documents that almost 99% of the media industry is controlled by just five corporations: Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS). When Bagdikian first started keeping track in 1983, the list was ten times longer. With such a rapid acceleration of media consolidation over the last few decades, the pressures to serve the profit motive have increased at an ever-expanding pace, while diverse political perspectives have dwindled. Former head of the New York Times editorial staff John Swinton candidly admitted this when he said, "We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes. We are intellectual prostitutes. The business of the Journalist is to destroy truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify."

Venezuela serves as an excellent case in point. Though democratically elected, Venezuela's larger than life head of state continues to be portrayed in the US media as a "left-wing dictator" and "autocratic strongman." Over the last two months, I have watched with sad amazement as the largest circulating and most revered newspapers in America artfully evade accurate reporting on arguably the two most newsworthy events in recent Venezuelan history, all in the hopes of safeguarding Chavez's "bad boy" image. This does an enormous disservice to us all. And despite our own President's notions to the contrary, it is still possible to learn from other nations.

As last year came to a close Venezuelan voters rejected a series of constitutional reforms proposed by Chávez. This marked the first electoral loss for the South American leader since he was elected by an overwhelming majority in 1998. In the run-up to the referendum, however, most American newspapers were cynical that a democratic election could be carried out. Empty rumors spread by Chávez's political opponents were repeated, alleging that the National Electoral Council was corrupt and biased. Influential newspapers issued articles characterizing the democratically elected leader as a "strongman" hoping to consolidate power through the passage of some 69 constitutional updates. Polls were cited, opposition leaders were quoted, and the general tone was set: the reforms were inherently undemocratic and would serve only to centralize state power.

Soon after, most of those same news dailies issued editorials expanding upon their already existing bias. Editorials appearing in the Houston Chronicle and Chicago Tribune wrongly stated that Venezuelans would lack due process during states of national emergency, a provision not included in the reforms. The Washington Post claimed that the reforms would curtail freedom in Venezuela. The Washington Times inaccurately stated that Chávez "controls most major Venezuelan media," an allegation debunked by any quick review of Venezuela's print and TV media. This particularly uninformed editorial followed an opinion piece earlier in the month penned by none other than notorious Cold War hawk Oliver North, who argued that Chávez had already "pulled a coup" on the Venezuelan people.

Similarly egregious opinion pieces were disseminated in the national press. A Los Angeles Times op-ed - written by an opposition journalist who elsewhere compared President Chávez to Bin Laden - made the unsupported and very emotional claim that constitutional reforms would cause a global recession due to higher oil prices. The Miami Herald predicted an end to freedom of expression. What these exaggerated accounts ignored was the fact that voters would ultimately decide for themselves at the polls.

As Venezuelan citizens eagerly awaited the election results in the early morning hours of December 3rd, opposition leaders led a series of public tirades on the steps of the National Electoral Council. Accusations of fraud were lodged and the public was told to be weary of the outcome of the election. When the official results were announced shortly thereafter, the constitutional reforms had lost: 51% to 49%.

In a move that logically should have shocked the press and elicited story after story, President Chávez gracefully accepted defeat; affirming on live television that the people of Venezuela had sent a message and that their will would be respected. He asked Venezuelans to celebrate peacefully, and congratulated the opposition for their victory.

Over the following days, no newspapers focused on the president's extraordinary response. Given his status as "dictator" and "autocrat" his gracious acceptance of defeat certainly merited a word or two. In fact, an entire expose could have been crafted on the leader's sudden change of heart! After all, how many dictators concede defeat? Alas, the democratic overture was largely overlooked and instead the American print media regurgitated previous dismissals of Venezuela?s democracy.

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