NPR (5/21/18) was amid many other news outlets who chose a similar headline strategy.
Nicolás Maduro was successfully re-elected president of Venezuela on Sunday, receiving 5.8 million of the 8.6 million ballots cast, on a turnout of 46 percent. His nearest challenger, Henri Falcon, received 1.8 million votes. The process was watched over by 150 international observers from over 30 countries, among them former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who said (Telesur, 5/20/18): “I do not have any doubt about the voting process. It is an advanced automatic voting system.”
Another election observer was former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who announced via Twitter (5/20/18):
The Venezuelan elections are developing with absolute normalcy. I’ve attended four polling stations. There is a permanent flow of citizenship, with short waiting and voting times. Very modern system with double control. From what I’ve seen, [it’s] impeccable organization.
However, Western media have taken an entirely different outlook to the proceedings, unanimously presenting them as seriously flawed, at best, and at worst a complete sham presided over by a dictator. The New York Times (5/20/18) presented the election as “a contest that critics said was heavily rigged in his favor,” Huffington Post (5/21/18) christened it “a vote denounced as a farce cementing autocracy in the crisis-stricken OPEC nation,” while NPR (5/21/18) stated:
Nicholas [sic] Maduro has easily won a second term, but his main rivals have refused to accept the results, calling the polling fraudulent—a view shared by the United States and many independent observers.
Apart from spelling the president’s name wrong, the only source that could be an “independent” observer quoted was the Washington-based, State Department–funded conservative group Freedom House, a rather questionable example of an “independent observer.”
“Amid, Amid, Amid”
New York Times (5/20/18)
Across media, coverage was eerily similar. Indeed, most media outlets even used the same word choice and structure in their headlines, declaring Maduro the winner while undermining the system’s legitimacy with the helpful preposition “amid”:
- “Venezuela’s Maduro Re-elected Amid Outcry Over Vote” (Reuters, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela Election Won by Maduro Amid Widespread Disillusionment” (New York Times, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela Election: Maduro Wins Second Term Amid Claims of Vote Rigging” (BBC (5/21/18)
- “Venezuela’s Maduro Wins Re-election Amid Opposition Boycott” (Wall Street Journal, 5/21/18)
- “Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Wins Re-election Amid Charges of Irregularities” (Chicago Tribune, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela Election: Maduro on Course for Re-election Amid Low Turnout: US Mulling Oil Sanctions After ‘Sham Election’” (London Independent, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela’s Maduro Wins Boycotted Elections Amid Charges of Fraud” (NPR, 5/21/18)
- “Vote Under Way in Venezuela Election Amid Opposition Boycott” (Al Jazeera, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela Keeps Voting Stations Open Amid Light Turnout” (Washington Post, 5/20/18)
- “Venezuela’s Socialist Leader Nicolas Maduro Elected Amid Allegations of Irregularities” (Huffington Post, 5/21/18)
Wall Street Journal (5/21/18)
None of these articles mentioned Correa, Zapatero or any other official observers’ comments. Not that they were hard to find; Correa has over 3.4 million followers on Twitter and his comment was re-tweeted over 3,500 times at the time of writing. Instead, they unanimously presented as a farce the election system the European Parliament (12/15/05) called “in line with the most advanced international practice,” the EU (12/4/06) called “efficient, secure and auditable, and the competence of the technical experts is in line with its advanced technological level,” and Jimmy Carter (9/21/12) called “the best in the world…a very wonderful voting system.”
Despite an opposition boycott making the result predictable, Maduro received the vote of 28 percent of the eligible electorate, around the same as Barack Obama received in 2008 and more than he got in 2012, or Trump in 2016, despite these being hotly contested elections. Ignoring this, Reuters (5/20/18) claimed poor Venezuelans were voting for Maduro because they believed they were going to “win a prize.”
The extraordinary similarity and negative tone across Western media should not surprise anyone. As I detailed in Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting, there have been enormous cuts to foreign reporting, leading to a situation where only a tiny cadre of journalists create the news we hear from other countries. Media copy and paste from news organizations like Reuters and Associated Press, which themselves employ many cheaper local journalists.
In Venezuela, these journalists are not neutral actors, but come from the highly partisan local media, affiliated with the opposition, leading to a situation where Western newsrooms see themselves as an ideological spearhead against Maduro, “the resistance” to the government.
Bloomberg (5/20/18) managed to reserve “amid” for the subhead.
In their crusade against Maduro, they are not above publishing fake news or deliberately misleading content, such as the infamous “condoms costs $755 in Venezuela,” which was picked up across the world (Time, 2/5/15; CNN, 2/6/15; Newsweek, 2/5/15). The originator of this story was unrepentant, claiming he would continue to use “sexy tricks” to get his point across.
The typical tricks used to discredit the Venezuelan are less sexy—such as Bloomberg’s Andrew Rosati (5/21/18) declaring that victory in the “widely derided election” gives Maduro “sole ownership of the nation’s crushing economic crisis”—then in the very next sentence gloating that “US and regional leaders” will punish Venezuela for holding the vote by imposing “further isolation and sanctions on the crisis-stricken nation’s all-important oil industry.” You have only yourself to blame, apparently, for defying the will of Washington.
I used to be a supporter of FAIR, but lately you seem to be picking the wrong fights, even backing leftist totalitarians, as you are here in supporting Maduro. The Jimmy Carter quote you cite is five years old, and was said seven months prior to Maduro’s first election in April, 2013 — which Carter and his center did not monitor. In fact, the Carter Center hasn’t monitored a Venezuelan election since a limited effort in December, 2006 (https://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html). Further, you ignore the Carter Center’s far more recent criticism of Venezuelan elections in 2017, covered by Reuters . . .
“‘On top of the fact the election was illegal, the (electoral council) broke every rule in the book of electoral integrity,’ said Jennie K. Lincoln, the Carter Center’s director for Latin America and Caribbean. ‘This election destroyed any vestiges of democracy that might have yet existed in Venezuela.'”
— https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-turnout/opposition-leaders-election-experts-decry-venezuela-vote-idUSKBN1AG2FN
But having dissolved a legitimately-elected parliament and replaced it with his own selectively-elected Constituent Assembly in 2017, Maduro is no friend or defender of democracy.
As a liberal, I am seriously disappointed that FAIR is now coming out on the side of, even defending, authoritarians, just because they’re on the left. Please do better than this — than being a shill for leftist authoritarianism. Otherwise you are only aiding the corrosion of democracy globally. I for one do not care for more Cambodian, Chinese or Russian-style revolutions, even if I do favor the left.
why would you ignore the first part of this article?
“The process was watched over by 150 international observers from over 30 countries, among them former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who said (Telesur, 5/20/18): “I do not have any doubt about the voting process. It is an advanced automatic voting system.””
and
why is FAIR “backing leftist totalitarians” when actually they are criticizing the US media and its OBVIOUS slant to support and justify illegal sanctions and regime change.
OP is mostly correct on this one.
This article does check some boxes. I think it is valid to question the media representation of anything. But, trying to say someone like Zapatero, Correa, the silent “observers,” or Telesur are any better as sources is not very intelligent. They are all spewing biased perspectives.
Telesur is basically a propaganda source for pro-ALBA news. Correa is trustworthy because of his twitter following? We should send Justin Bieber there because his opinions would be 30x more credible by that standard. A Jimmy Carter quote from 6 years ago! Yeah, that’s likely as fresh as milk from 2012. It should be noted to that Zapetero’s comments have been heavily edited by Telesur as well.
Also, there is nothing illegal about sanctions. It’s every country’s sovereign right to chose their trading partners based on shared values. That is after all what Venezuela has tried and failed to accomplish.
The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has vastly reduced poverty and bettered the lives of millions of struggling poor people, the exact opposite of what has been happening across the Neo-Liberal West.
The level of propaganda coming from your magazine is disgusting! You have become the source of the vilest lies and gross misrepresentations typical of the worst of the left wing smear machine. Fact is that thousands are fleeing Venezuela because they are starving and being attacked by government thugs. We can take everything you said and reverse it to even to begin to approximate the truth.
…perhaps you may want to rethink that ‘liberal moniker’
1. The only PROVEN collusion with Russia was the DNC, Hillary’s lawyers, and Russians
2. Watch MSNBC from Q2-Q3 of 2017. It will astound you the things they’ve said that Faux news has since proven wrong
3.They (Hillary & Obama) were on the wrong side of the Honduras disaster
4. Obama gave Chavez a handshake & his back to Uribe, the only strong US allie
. Dems supported Chavez without seeing the reality of well over 90 billion in debt, zero infrastructure spend, and massive oil giveaways. Where’s Seeeen Penn, Cindy Sheehan, and Danny Glover now?
Dems were behind every Jim Crowe law, formed the KKK, were against every civil rights movement as well. I’ll leave you with a trick question.
Please name any Republican slave owner prior to the Civil War. (Trick as there were none. THAT was verified by two liberal journaliststststs…..
Hey Mr “Liberal”! Don’t you have any criticism of the US efforts to undermine democracy in Venezuela? Nope, you ignore the US sponsored coup attempts and the economic sabotage. Venezuela is doing quite well in balancing democratic rights against the need for security against US subversion, which conrinued through the Bush, Obama and Trump regimes.
The “opposition” in Venezuela are a bunch of right wing thugs seeking to put the poor and working masses back in their place.
With “liberals” like you, who needs right wing extemists?
The stenographers for the Empire should do a better job at proof-reading themselves. From his own “mouth”:
‘Bloomberg’s Andrew Rosati (5/21/18) declaring that victory … gives Maduro “sole ownership of the nation’s crushing economic crisis”—then in the very next sentence gloating that “US and regional leaders” will punish Venezuela for holding the vote by imposing “FURTHER ISOLATION AND SANCTIONS on the crisis-stricken nation’s all-important oil industry.”’
The stenographers for the Empire should do a better job at proof-reading themselves. From his own “mouth”:
‘Bloomberg’s Andrew Rosati (5/21/18) declaring that victory … gives Maduro “sole ownership of the nation’s crushing economic crisis”—then in the very next sentence gloating that “US and regional leaders” will punish Venezuela for holding the vote by imposing “FURTHER ISOLATION AND SANCTIONS on the crisis-stricken nation’s all-important oil industry.”’
Empire…?…..Wow, you’re either a 6th grader or blind leftist
I worked in Caracas and was there when Chavez’ actions, bad decisions began to ruin the economy.
– ZERO nationalized company was producing more or employed more 5 years later (exception: pdvsa employees 300% more and produces 55% less.
– Chavez threatened the private sector and drove away investors. ZERO fault of the Gringos
– Chavez put price controls in place that immediately resulted in over 12% drop in business revenues (less taxes coming in and fewer people employed) ZERO fault of Gringos
– Maduro printed so much cash, the bills couldn’t fit on three (3) jumbo jets. Hyperinflation then set in and it was well predicted….and ZERO fault of Gringos
– Maduro AND Chavez have had a three tier money system that invited corruption. On a brighter note, it did allow Chavez’ daughter to move to Argentina as the richest women in Latin America…4.2 billion dollars that not even you can legitimize.
– Maduro has threatened the Gringos by saying he may not send oil. WHO CARES…?… The Permian Basin is outproducing pdvsa, Mexico has an incremental 2 million barrels daily available and cheaper, and Ecopetrol is requesting to partner closer with the Gringos to the tune of 1 million barrels a day.
– WTI….W-T-I ! ! !THAT controls Venezuela. It’s West Texas Intermediate and is needed by pdvsa to blend their oil for cracking (refining). Trump could, with signing 1 paper, stop sending WTI to pdvsa. Within 3 weeks Venezuela would simply shut down. Brent Sweet wont work, nor with Repisol. r any other, due to calibrated machines pdvsa cannot change. Good luck Brah’ wth you Che Love Fest.
There is nothing juvenile about recognizing that the US is an empire. Your comment OTOH is laced with immature and disrespectful insults.
Under Chavez and Maduro, the poor have liberated themselves and have far better living conditions – despite the black propaganda emanating from CIA infiltrated US media.
The “opposition” are a bunch of right wing thugs who want to put the poor back in their place.
I wonder sometimes if the editors and writers at Bloomberg ever read their own headlines. Put in a slightly different order, it reads,”Maduro risks harsh oil sanctions by winning the election”.
Rigging the notes
Is the author of this article 12 years old, delusional, on drugs, or a combination of the three. She seems to completely forget a few vittles in glorifying this election;
1. The FREELY ELECTED CONGRESS was simply done away with, then replaced with Maduro political party supporters
2. Two candidates whom both CLEARLY HAVE MORE SUPPORT THAN MADURO were banned from the Election (please read again)
3. Maduro spent massive public funds on his campaign, in a clearly unconstitutional move
4. Maduro banned the opposition party from competing in the election
.
So, YES, This was a fare election…IFFFFFFFFFF you forget the opposition couldn’t compete, the two leading candidates which BOTH currently have more support than Maduro couldn’t run, and the millions of $$$$ in public funds used on Maduros campaign. Yep, sure look legit to those on drugs or possessing IQs under 3.
Is the author of this article 12 years old, delusional, on drugs, or a combination of the three. She seems to completely forget a few vittles in glorifying this election;
1. The FREELY ELECTED CONGRESS was simply done away with, then replaced with Maduro political party supporters
2. Two candidates whom both CLEARLY HAVE MORE SUPPORT THAN MADURO were banned from the Election (please read again)
3. Maduro spent massive public funds on his campaign, in a clearly unconstitutional move
4. Maduro banned the opposition party from competing in the election
.
So, YES, This was a fare election…IFFFFFFFFFF you forget the opposition couldn’t compete, the two leading candidates which BOTH currently have more support than Maduro couldn’t run, and the millions of $$$$ in public funds used on Maduros campaign. Yep, sure look legit to those on drugs or possessing IQs under 3.
Your claim that the two banned right wing politicians have more support than Maduro is simply propaganda. Opposition to Maduro comes mostly from the privileged professional and capitalist classes.
The opposition has little support among the poor and working masses, who were the ones who shut down the coup attempt against democracy by your beloved “opposition” (which is actually run by an anti-democratic oligarchy) under Bush
Two points: the praise fo rthe Venezuelan election system by the European Parliament , etc. you cite, date from 2005,m 2006 and, the most recent, from 2012; in case you need reminding, this is 2018. furthermore, just because a system is technologically advanced, it does not mean the results were accurate.
For the author of this article to complain of other sources being “biased” is a joke, albeit not a very funny one.
There’s a very good reason why most of us on the democratic left who once lauded the example if Venezuela no longer do – it’s because the late Chavez’ experiment is a total disaster.
To blithely pretend that there is no economic crisis in the country and even worse, to pretend that elections are free and fair when the free press has been muzzled and the opposition jailed is intellectual dishonesty of the worst kind.
FAIR is betraying its own standards by publishing this piece.
Wow, what a weird and angry reaction from so many … I have no idea what to think. Someone wrote “she” as the writer, but it’s a guy Alan…Alan’s. last book title seems to diss Venezuela—— However, the U.S. headlines were so similar .i.e. “amid, amid, amid.” and were Sinclair News scary in repetition, but was written by main stream US media…..The US hates Venezuela because it took back its own oil and unlike Iran was able to stay ahead of the US oil companies….. but since Iran took back its oil, now America wants to wipe them from the face of the earth?
Unfair elections… wow, you mean like America ( 2000)— and certainly Wisconsin get top honors with the lady who transferred all votes to her personal computer and a legislative body that seems demented——–. Wow, just Wow! . This piece has more comments than any other today —and yet—-I am still left feeling confused. I feel as if I have been reading angry comments which morph into a journalistic version of Abbott and Costellos, comic routine” Who’s on First.” : 0
I was impressed by how Immediate the supporters of Empire struck back at the election and this article. The very first comment by Loren Herrigstad threw out the loaded negative descriptions of “leftist totalitarians” and “Otherwise you are only aiding the corrosion of democracy globally” without actually naming any of those countries where democracy is being implemented. The US supports democracy? Maybe by selling weapons to its good buddy democratic Bahrain perhaps? Or the Saud Family’s democratic Arabia? Democratic Apartheid Israel? Neo-Nazis in democratic Ukraine? Maybe the democratic military dictatorship running Honduras comes to mind?
Shades of Wbush ‘You are with us or with the terrorists.” Have we learned nothing from this crap?
Democracy is certainly not apparent here in the United States. With the conservative totalitarians on the unSupreme Court breaking the US Constitution and the Florida State Constitution in 2000 to install their chosen puppet Wbush, to the gerrymandering of districts and the throwing of voters off voter rolls; the incredibly corrupt primaries (thank you Hillary for pointing out just how bad the DNC actually is), and then consider the billions of dollars pumped into campaign ‘contributions’ (plain English: Graft and Bribes) by the wealthy US oligarchs to both Republican and Democrats of the One Corporate Party I’d have to say democracy is pretty dang hard to find around here. So having screaming fits about an election the United States Board of Corporate Directors doesn’t like is literally the kettle calling the pot black.
And to blame all the economic problems in Venezuela without adding in all the sneaky devious ways the US Corporate Empire strangles a country that doesn’t go along with installing puppets of the wealthy to do their bidding by stripping the country bare for their personal corporate profit is just pure juvenile propaganda of the worst sort. Let’s get all the information out not just selected portions out of context to bolster bullsh*t memes acceptable to the MSM.
But, I must admit, it certainly does work well with the ignorant masses of US ‘consumers’ (remember when we were called citizens?) that mostly don’t bother to vote because the politicians don’t do what the voters want anyway…just their corporate owners wishes are followed.
A cut from today’s counterpunch article ‘Election Observer: ‘The Majority Have Chosen the Path They Want for Venezuela’:
“Organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), the African Union, and countries such as Palestine, Russia, China, India, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. have recognized the vote.Others, however, such as the United States, the European Union, and the Lima Group [which included 13 right-wing Latin American countries and Canada] have refused to accept it and threaten more sanctions.
The day after Maduro was re-elected, the US administration implemented new, more severe sanctions. In response, Maduro expelled two leading diplomats from the US Embassy, Chargé d’Affaires Todd Robinson and head of political affairs Brian Naranjo, on May 22.”
So the US and its puppet countries are throwing down more ‘economic sanctions’ to punish people that actually go to the polls and vote in their country. Class War obviously continues. I wonder what the response from the leaders of the US if countries would band together and sanction the US would be? No more bananas, coffee, chocolate, cheap crap from China filling Walmart shelves. The Horror!
Even Venezuela still sells their oil to the US though it isn’t the wealthy elite making the profits but the common people getting medical care and education and schools…pisses the Venezuelan wealthy class no end, doesn’t it? Class War indeed, and in the US we are losing badly to the sociopaths. In Venezuela not so much maybe.
The observers agree that the vote was honest. I accept that as true, but it is not the whole story. The question is whether or not the campaign was honest, and it certainly appears that there are serious doubts about that.
The only thing I may add to Alan MacLeod’s excellent article on Venezuela is that our American capitalist and definitely imperialist news media have never liked socialists or those who vote for them.
great article! Need to get some books produced by the Glasgow Media Group, the latest on Venezuela seems very promising, and nice to see the idlibs (iditol liberals) and facsocs (fake socialists) out in full force believing that Western powers and media have the best interest of Venezuelans to see the ouster of Maduro completely ignoring history and like John Oliver ‘this time there really is a bad guy in Venezuela’. Go listen to ‘Love Me I’m a Liberal’ by Phil Ochs perfectly describes you insincere bastards, and Telesur has its faults, but I assume you all watch Al Jazeera which is Qatari divide and conquer station so bugger off with your pot calling the kettle black.