[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Pilger on Venezuela coverage

[Patrick Bond]

(We're anticipating two visits from John Pilger next year, first to get 
a doctorate at Rhodes journalism and do a Wolpe lecture and Time of the 
Writer speech at UKZN in late March, and again in late July to screen 
his Venezuela film.)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2980
December 9th 2007, by John Pilger - Comment is free

The book of which I am most proud is Tell Me No Lies: Investigative 
Journalism and its Triumphs. It was a long-held ambition of mine to 
bring together the work of those I considered the greatest journalists 
of my lifetime: the "honourable exceptions" of my craft. In paying 
tribute to them, I wanted to demonstrate to young journalists a calibre 
of truth-telling to which they might aspire. There is the reporting of 
Martha Gellhorn, Edward R Murrow, James Cameron, Seymour Hersh, Paul 
Foot, Robert Fisk, Jessica Mitford and the Guardian's Seumas Milne and 
Richard Norton-Taylor among others.

In celebrating those who kept and continue to keep the record straight - 
the basis of all good journalism - I also recognise the need to identify 
the example of those at the other end of the spectrum, whose work is 
hardly journalism at all, but who possess the power of exposure in the 
so-called mainstream media.

On March 28 2006 I described here a report broadcast on Channel 4 News 
the previous night by its Washington correspondent, Jonathan Rugman. 
Rugman is pretty typical of television's Washington correspondents; he 
reports as if embedded, when, in fact, his work is voluntary. What 
distinguishes him is his reporting from Venezuela. Rugman's brief visit 
last year to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, produced what I 
described here as "one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism 
I have ever seen qualifying as crude propaganda". This was a piece, I 
wrote, "which might as well have been written by the US state 
department". For example, he described Maria Corina Machado as a "human 
rights activist". In fact, she was a leader of Sumate, an extreme 
rightwing organisation, who had been welcomed to the White House by 
George Bush himself. He caricatured Hugo Chávez as a buffoon dictator. 
In fact, he is an authentic product of a popular political movement that 
began in 1989 who has won more democratic elections than any leader on 
earth. Rugman reported that Chávez was helping Iran develop a nuclear 
weapon. In fact, this is laughable - see the US National Intelligence 
Estimate report published on December 3 2007. At the end of his 
performance, Rugman complained dramatically to the camera that he had 
been "held for 30 hours" by police in Caracas. In fact, he had walked 
into a military base and, surprise, surprise, was apprehended - as he 
would be on any Ministry of Defence establishment in Britain - and 
Venezuela is a country whose president two years earlier had been 
temporarily overthrown in a military coup. In fact, Chávez himself 
arranged for Rugman's speedy release. Rugman's "report" was so absurd 
that Channel 4 News, which maintains a reputation, was inundated with 
complaints and, as I was told, "embarrassed" - though not embarrassed 
enough to desist from sending Rugman back to Venezuela for yesterday's 
important constitutional referendum.

Chávez narrowly lost the referendum. His government wanted to change a 
number of articles in the Venezuelan constitution that would define what 
he has called "socialism for the 21st century", including allowing the 
president to stand in unlimited elections (which leaders in Britain, 
Canada, Australia and many other countries can do). But many of his own 
supporters were unconvinced and probably confused as to why they were 
being called upon to vote yet again, and 3 million of them abstained.

Ironically, the result actually reaffirmed the health of democracy in 
Venezuela and served to ridicule the incessant media propaganda that 
Chávez was a "dictator" and a "tyrant". In a gracious speech conceding 
defeat, Chávez congratulated the opposition and invited them to 
celebrate. His tone was the antithesis of the media-led campaign. On the 
eve of the referendum, closeted with Venezuela's rich minority, Jonathan 
Rugman allowed them to call Chávez a communist, which he isn't. "It's as 
bad that?" he contributed.

Presenting these people as victims, he said nothing about their history 
of rapacious privilege or that their wealth was actually increasing 
under Chávez. He allowed, unsubstantiated, histrionics such as, "There 
are Chávez supporters [who] will kill me." His clever cameraperson 
filmed soldiers from the boots up at polling stations - soldiers who, 
according to Rugman, instead of saluting cry out "for the fatherland and 
socialism". That they were guarding an election process internationally 
recognised and commended was not mentioned, neither was the fact that 
opposition monitors had announced they were pleased with the conduct of 
the election. For a spot of "balance", he toured what he called the 
"slums" and found "rubbish in the streets" and milk missing from 
otherwise abundantly stocked supermarkets. His script was crudely 
juxtaposed with images showing a screaming child being given an 
injection over which Rugman commented that "this is how Chávez is 
injecting his vast oil wealth just where it's needed most". "Chávez 
loyalists," said Rugman, "will control parliament." Imagine Channel 4 
News describing Labour's electoral majority in the Commons as "Labour's 
loyalists control parliament."

He diminished or ignored the majority of the proposed constitutional 
changes including those that would reduce the working week from 44 hours 
to 36 hours; extend social security benefits to 5 million Venezuelans 
who work in the "informal economy" - street vendors and the like; end 
discrimination on the basis of gender - unprecedented in Latin America; 
lower the minimum voting age from 18 to 16, also unprecedented; and 
recognise Venezuela's African-Venezuelan heritage and multiculturalism 
as a step towards ending the rampant racism practised by a wealthy elite 
reminiscent of white South Africa under apartheid.

With the referendum results announced, Rugman rejoiced with a crowd of 
the well-off in Caracas. He declared that "the air is seeping out of the 
socialist revolution". Disgracefully, he reported that "[the opposition] 
feared that [Chávez] would rig the ballots against them" - when the 
opposite was both true and confirmed.

Propaganda such as this is an accurate reflection of the Venezuela 
media, which is overwhelmingly anti-Chávez and pro-Washington and was 
complicit in the lawless 2002 coup. As one of the coup plotters said, 
"Our secret weapon was the media." Dressed as journalism, it seeks not 
to inform, but to discredit - in this case, demonstrably one of the most 
original and imaginative and hopeful democratic experiments in the 
world. In doing so, it blocks real debate on issues such as those that 
led Chávez supporters to abstain and a definition of Venezuela's 
proclaimed "socialism" as well as the natural tension between the state 
and the grass roots. It is the same propaganda that has closed down 
debate elsewhere and helped to see off Allende in Chile, the Sandinistas 
in Nicaragua and Astride in Haiti, not to mention a long list of those 
on other continents who have tried to raise their people out of poverty 
and despair. This is journalism as the agency of power, not people, 
unrelated in all ways to the craft of a Gellhorn, a Cameron, a Murrow, a 
Hersh.