Below is the second part of British media watchdog, Media Lens' report on how much of the British mainstream media have been united in depicting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as an extreme, absurd and threatening figure.
May 18, 2006
Ridiculing Chavez - The Media Hit Their Stride, Part 2
Media Lens
In Part 1 of this alert we showed how the mainstream media have been united in depicting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as an extreme, absurd and threatening figure. In essence, the public has been urged to consider Chavez beyond the pale of respectable politics.
As John Pilger has observed, British media attacks “resemble uncannily those of the privately owned Venezuelan television and press, which called for the elected government to be overthrown”. (Pilger, ‘Chávez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent society,’ The Guardian, May 13, 2006;
www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1773908,00.html)
We focused mainly on news reports, skipping many of the more madcap comment pieces. Aleksander Boyd, for example, wrote in the Times of how: “The Venezuelan President aligns himself with dictators, human rights abusers and notorious narcoterrorists.” (Boyd, ‘Guess who's coming to dinner with Red Ken?,’ The Times, May 9, 2006)
No surprise, then, to learn that in thrall to this monster: “Venezuela has ceased to be a real democracy: it now exists instead in the murky twilight world between democracy and dictatorship, where there is still a free press and a nod to holding elections.” (Ibid)
In fact Chavez is one of the world’s most popular heads of state. Boyd has been quoted and heard elsewhere - in The Sun and on BBC Radio 2, for example. Julia Buxton of the University of Bradford responded in a letter to the Times:
“Mr Boyd has been linked to threats of violence against people working and writing on Venezuelan related issues for the past few years. He has also organised disruptive protest actions that have undermined public security and he has published libellous and inflammatory articles on Islam, Middle Eastern and South American politics.” (www.vicuk.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85&Itemid=29)
It might be argued that media reporting simply reflects a dismal reality - perhaps Chavez +is+ irresponsible. But in fact the current media smear reveals more about power relations in Britain than it does about politics in Venezuela. In 1992, Jeff Cohen of the US media watch site Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) described media coverage afforded to one important Western ally:
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