When previously unknown Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaidó stood up in an East Caracas plaza and declared himself “interim president” of the South American country, Western corporate media were ebullient.
In those heady early days, corporate journalists could scarcely conceal their love affair with the 35-year-old politician, whom they likened to Barack Obama (CNN, 2/7/19) and described as a “freedom fighter” (Fox Business, 1/29/19) and Venezuela’s “only democratically elected figure” (MSNBC, 1/24/19), who had “captured the heart of the nation” (New York Times, 3/4/19).
Nearly six months later, with Guaidó no closer to ousting Venezuela’s elected president, Nicolás Maduro, from Miraflores Presidential Palace, the enthusiasm has dampened. Now that the honeymoon is over, it would appear that corporate journalists have been compelled to reckon with some uncomfortable truths about Guaidó, US sanctions and the coup they had been vigorously endorsing.
A dying romance
What’s worse than having to bathe with a bucket? Being demoted by Western media from “interim president” to “opposition leader” (Bloomberg, 6/7/19).
“Disappointed Venezuelans Lose Patience With Guaidó,” writes Reuters (7/1/19), in what might be read as a projection of its journalists’ own frustration with Washington’s failing coup.
After Guaidó’s self-proclamation in January, the corporate outlet (1/23/19) gushingly described him as a “salsa-loving baseball fan,” who posed “the boldest challenge to socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s rule in years.”
Similarly, the CBC in January (1/23/19) labeled hard-right Popular Will party leader Guaidó a long-time “activist” at the head of a “centrist social-democratic party.” Most recently, the state network (6/29/19) declared that the opposition leader, depicted in a gloomy headshot, “has few cards to play—and not long to play them.”
There is no clearer indication of the Western media’s growing disillusionment than the gradual demotion of Guaidó from “interim president” to “National Assembly president” or “opposition leader.” For example, ABC News was referring to Guaidó as “interim president” (often without the “self-proclaimed” prefix) as recently as May (5/3/19, 5/5/19). Fast forward two months, and the title is just “opposition leader” (6/26/19, 7/5/19).
In yet another sign that the US-backed coup is running on empty, corporate journalists’ triumphalist tone that followed Guaidó’s self-proclamation has given way to reports that he “remains defiant” (CNBC, 5/2/19), “soldiers on” (Bloomberg, 6/7/19) or is “under pressure” (Telegraph, 6/19/19).
The growing doubts from the media establishment mirror those in DC, with rumors circulating that Trump is “losing patience and interest” in Venezuela (Washington Post, 6/19/19). Having gone all in on a horse falling rapidly behind in the regime-change race, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and “special representative” Elliott Abrams are now forced to take turns publicly reiterating US support for Guaidó.
The opposition leader’s fading luster has not been helped by a corruption scandal that accused his appointed envoys to Colombia of embezzling “humanitarian aid” money. The story was unveiled by the Miami-based and rabidly anti-government outlet PanamPost (6/18/19), and was too big to ignore. All the media could do was try to spin it as “Guaidó Calls for Probe” (Reuters, 6/15/19), but the damage was done.
Cracks in sanctions denial
That Washington’s policies are causing starvation is a crucial thing for US citizens to know, but it’s information that’s mostly confined to opinion pieces like this one in the New York Times (7/10/19).
Guaidó’s failing coup has even led to a few cracks in the refusal of corporate outlets to acknowledge the devastating humanitarian toll of US sanctions on Venezuela since 2017, which were escalated in January when the Trump administration imposed an oil embargo, cutting the country off from its No. 1 cash buyer.
As Joe Emersberger reported for FAIR (6/14/19), on June 9 Reuters finally mentioned a study by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs that found US sanctions responsible for as many as 40,000 Venezuelan deaths in 2017–18.
Reuters had buried the report for over a month, and has since reverted to its standard practice of framing the humanitarian impact of US sanctions as a mere allegation by the Maduro administration.
A few exceptions notwithstanding (Financial Times, 7/7/19; Independent, 7/7/19, 4/26/19), the corporate press has all but suppressed the Weisbrot/Sachs report (FAIR.org, 6/26/19), with most outlets portraying Venezuela’s economic destruction as a condition preceding US sanctions, imposed first under Obama in 2014–15 and ratcheted up by Trump in 2017.
The New York Times (7/6/19) elevates this mystification into an art form, presenting the collapse of Venezuelan agriculture, largely due to sanctions-induced fuel shortages, as the culmination of “six years of economic crisis under President Nicolás Maduro, whose policies of price controls, expropriations and state-sanctioned embezzlement have wiped out the country’s private sector”—which sanctions have merely “worsened.” Even more remarkably, the paper of record published an article (5/17/19) interviewing economists on the scale of Venezuela’s crisis that managed to avoid quoting any anti-government economists critical of sanctions, such as Francisco Rodriguez, let alone mentioning the Weisbrot/Sachs study.
On the op-ed pages, some corporate outlets have been more candid about the danger that US sanctions could cause “famine” in Venezuela (Financial Times, 7/3/19; New York Times, 7/10/19, 2/28/19).
However, only in the Times op-ed by economist Francisco Rodriguez (7/10/19) does the public encounter an acknowledgement of the 2017 sanctions’ role in Venezuela’s current economic devastation. In other cases, corporate journalists continue to deny or downplay the existence of broad-ranging US economic sanctions all-together, pretending they only affect government officials.
The Guardian (5/21/19) went the farthest, referring to coercive US measures that have hit multiple sectors of the Venezuelan economy and resulted in thousands of deaths as “financial sanctions on Venezuela’s president.”
Old habits die hard
The Washington Post (6/24/19) unskeptically relays the claims of a Venezuelan defector.
Disappointed by Guaidó’s fading star, Western reporters have labored to mint new pro-Washington heroes worthy of their regime change fantasies. In the wake of Guaidó and Leopoldo Lopez’s botched April 30 putsch, corporate media discovered a new champion in former Venezuelan intelligence chief Manuel Cristopher Figuera, who aided in the coup attempt.
In an exclusive interview, the Washington Post (6/24/19) glowingly described Figuera as “a muscular 55-year-old [who] was one of the revolution’s true believers.” Despite defecting from his country to collaborate with a hostile foreign power, the ex-top spy is heralded as a source of indisputable veracity, whose unsubstantiated claims about Cuban capture of Venezuelan politics (FAIR.org, 3/26/19) or Hezbollah activity in the country (FAIR.org, 5/24/19) are to be taken at face value.
As in the case of former intelligence czar Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal (New York Times, 2/21/19), currently facing extradition to the US on drug charges, no effort is made to interrogate defectors’ incentives to fabricate “information” that just happens to legitimate Washington’s casus belli. The ultimate goal is not to prove any nefarious activity, which is highly implausible, but to provide moral justification for regime-change efforts.
In its quest for new anti-Maduro stalwarts, the corporate press does not draw the line at rehabilitating rogue spies “accused of arbitrary detentions and torture.” In a remarkable feat of historical revisionism, AP’s Joshua Goodman (6/25/19) exalts the “bravery” of former Caracas security chief Ivan Simonovis, who escaped house arrest and fled to the US last month.
Simonovis had been handed a 30-year sentence in 2009 for the death of two people when snipers opened fire at the Llaguno Bridge on April 11, 2002. A total of 19 pro- and anti-government demonstrators were killed in a massacre that Goodman falsely terms a “gunfight,” setting the stage for a coup that temporarily ousted President Hugo Chávez.
Goodman ignores that “supercop” Simonovis’ Metropolitan Police was notorious for its brutality, with even former chief Jhonny Campos casting doubt on the force’s human rights record.
“Venezuela’s Metropolitan Police was, without a doubt, the security force most reviled by the poorest members of society,” observes George Ciccariello-Maher, an expert on Venezuelan popular movements:
Associated with political repression, drug dealing, kidnapping and rape, the Metropolitan Police was so loathed that residents of working-class barrios often demanded the army be sent in to replace them.
Goodman went on to approvingly cite Simonovis’ contracting of former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton, himself accused of criminalizing poor communities with “broken windows” policing.
Western media’s newfound doubts about Guaidó and reluctant admissions of the deadly effects of sanctions are not a case of journalistic standards starting to take over. Rather, this cognitive dissonance reflects the utter disorientation that has come to characterize Guaidó and his US handlers’ operation. The end result is journalists, attempting to stay the US regime-change course tainted by Guaidó’s serial failures, laundering the reputations of the foulest of anti-government figures in the process.
Featured image: CBC depiction (6/29/19) of Juan Guaidó.
Excellent work, gentleman.
Some would see this as a failure of the mainstream media to do their job.
Those with a historical perspective based in reality would view it as assiduous adherence to their assigned task.
Exactly. The power of money that buys politicians and media alike is shaping what we are supposed to think. The problem arises when the narrative gets upended, and needs to be adjusted, fast. Then, the degree of lying then shows exactly the degree of personal commitment writers have for the owners of narrative. Thus, some paddle away gently— while other double up in defending the narrative owners.
This has bern the case of Syria where Assad is no linger expected to pack his suitcases.
But the consolation to the narrative owners and peddlers are the almighty sanctions. Here, you can forever spin the guilt of the “regime” for the damage caused by sanctions. Oddly enough, sanctions hit always the mire prosperous classes, as they are mire dependent in imports and luxuries. It is expected that their fury would undermine the government — be that in Iran or Venezuela. But the result was the resentment towards the wealthy (relatively speaking) as those always count on a foreign power to make them rich. But in the case of Venezuela the fault line exists between the descendants of former colonists in urban areas, used to privileges, and vast masses of native Venezuelans used to poverty. When the coup did not happen fast, urban supporters got scared, as being too close to Guaido may cost them retribution should government survive. Sanctions hurt them, while natives now have IDs and can vote. Urban classes can field Guiaidos of this world, but once the rest of the country wised up on the significance of such candidates, they will not win anything greater then their precincts.
In Iran, country never liked Shah’s era rich Teheran urbanites, thus their suffering under sanctions is not likely to find sympathizers. Sanctions, the longer they last, the stronger domestic substitution becomes. If examples like Russia are any guidance, the result is strengthening of many domestic economic strengths.
The Guardian will never stop. It also relies on “energy experts” which I haven’t investigated but I doubt are really objective. And it’s still touting the “sanctions aren’t to blame”. From today on the blackout:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/23/venezuela-blackouts-new-normal
““This blackout is the result of negligent mis-operation of the power grid,” said José Aguilar, a Venezuelan energy and risk consultant based in the US. “These will keep happening and it will get worse before it gets better.”
Other analysts express similar incredulity. “It’s hard to believe that it was an electromagnetic attack, when you’ve seen years of theft and corruption in the energy sector,” said Geoff Ramsey, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America. “This blackout shows government doesn’t have the tools to return to normalcy.”
Some supporters of Nicolás Maduro have claimed that US sanctions aimed at Venezuela’s oil industry have hampered his government’s ability to keep the lights on, but many of those sanctions target individuals accused corruption.”
[note also they frame it as only “supporters of Nicolas Maduro” being capable of thinking US sanctions have hampered Venezuela’s electric grid. It can’t possibly be objectively true.]
Yes the anti govt.”reporting” has degnerating ENMTIRELY into self referencing propaganda..and it wasnt much beter before but now its a=every bit is credulous and laughable as old 1960’s North Korean Claims of laboratory constructed, immortal, bullet proof soldiers, or generals who dont have to eat or sleep or poop,..etc.,..every bit as ridiculous ..so much for bourgeois “democracy” and its “free press” I suppose they interpret “free press” to also mean the freedom to tell sickening propaganda whoppers that are, no more believable than the average “Dr Who” plot
Some interesting points. However, you lost me with at the description of Jeffrey Sachs as an “economist”.
That’s cute….never mind the fact that regardless of your personal feelings about a single dude referenced in a much longer story, Sachs is both an economist and professor of economy at Harvard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs#Academic_career
The wrenched of the day may have their day in Venezuela
Interesting,….. I don’t follow the Politics of the American Republican Party, even though I am a Staunch Conservative. And, I don’t follow the Politics of the Democrat Party, even though I Believe in the Scriptural Commandment to “Love Our Brother”.
I Absolutely Believe that America’s Mainstream Political Parties, are, in a very “Orwellian Manner”, the same “hand”, so to speak, & that they jointly are herding the American Peple towards a “One World Order”, which even the Conservative George Bush Sr. publicly spoke of twice, in a speech to the American People.
I Believe that the Un-declared & Un-justified Wars, that America has been fighting since WWII, were & are designed to Weaken America, as well as to assist in bringing about this “One World Order”.
I’m curious as to what drew the wrath of the American Government, when it began it’s tariffs/sanctions on Venezuela? Perhaps another situation similar to Guatemala where the people elected a Communist, & soon after, America’s Corporations such as “Chiquita” demanded help from the Pentagon/CIA due to Guatemala’s Government preparing to Nationalize the Banana plantations?
I’ve seen where Communism & Socialism, as Governments have horribly FAILED, & yet, …. I Also see where Governments, such as America’s, become evermore Corrupt, when the “People” allow their Leaders to do all of their Thinking, as well as “Take Care of all of their Problems”, ….. Resulting in what I suspect could be called Fascism.
Your article reveals even more than what the “Mainstream News” is willing to speak of, ……
Guaido, in My Belief, … Absolutely is not an Elected “Leader” of the Venezuelan people, nor has he received Majority Support after proclaiming himself to be “President”.
The “Twitter-in-Chief”, & the other “Leaders of the Free World”, …. Do not have any “Right” to overthrow an Elected Leader of any Nation, including Venezuela, unless of course, that “Leader” began to commit Genocide upon his people, &/or began to commit Acts against certain Sects/Colors/Faiths as in Rwanda, & Cambodia.
In a very “Orwellian Fashion”,…..”We the People” have been Conned, not only by this Current Administration, but also by the many that have existed for more than 50 years.
And Very Soon, In My Belief,….. America, & The “Free World”, are going to be Savagely & Catastrophically shaken Awake.
You seem to be guilty of the same sin you accuse corporate media of committing. You relate Simonovis` story and in passing, admit to the long history of brutality by the Policia Metropolitana (Metropolitan Police). Remind me, Who does the Police work for? Could it be, THE BOLIVIARIAN GOVERNMENT?