Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty years of fake news and misreporting

by Alan Macleod

Since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has become an important news item. Western coverage is shaped by the cultural milieu of its journalists, with news written from New York or London by non-specialists or by those staying inside wealthy guarded enclaves in an intensely segregated Caracas. Journalists mainly work with English-speaking elites and have little contact with the poor majority. Therefore, they reproduce ideas largely attuned to a Western, neoliberal understanding of Venezuela.

Through extensive analysis of media coverage from Chavez’s election to the present day, as well as detailed interviews with journalists and academics covering the country, Bad News from Venezuela highlights the factors contributing to reportage in Venezuela and why those factors exist in the first place. From this examination of a single Latin American country, the book furthers the discussion of contemporary media in the West, and how, with the rise of ‘fake news’, their operations have a significant impact on the wider representation of global affairs.

Bad News from Venezuela is comprehensive and enlightening for undergraduate students and research academics in media and Latin American studies.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Journalism

168 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 17, 2018

Reviews

[John Davie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand western foreign reporting .

[Klejton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tidy little book with a nice chomskean (if thats even a word) analysis. Obviously take the last sections with a grain of salt since Alan, to my knowledge, has worked for the Maduro government and is not an unbiased sourced. Regardless, the numbers in defence of Chavez are indisputable.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What happens if you put 'US-backed’ into a newspaper? Will they take it out? Yes. And the funny thing is that no one would ever know because the journalists would just never [even] think it. It is a form of mind control because everyone thinks they are free. And the best people to write censored arti- cles are people who don't even realize they are performing self-censorship."

"However, the growing economy meant their total income was much higher in 2012 than in 1999. It was only the richest 10 percent of Venezuelan society who were financially worse off under Chavez (ECLAC, 2013: 89)"

"Venezuelan elections are among the most carefully moni- tored in the world by election-monitoring bodies and outside obsery- ers, who attest to the robustness of the system."

"...those protesting are not a grassroots group of citizens but a small group of rich students from elite universities and the light-skinned privileged elites who are conducting a terror- istic campaign of violence..."

"Furthermore, the targets of attack by the protesters: kindergartens, universities, health clinics, more than 160 Cuban doctors (some who protesters attempted to burn alive) (Ellner, 2014b), the Caracas Metro, etc. all have a clear political message: the buildings and institutions targeted were representations of the flag- ship programs in education, health, transport, etc. of the missions, the epitomes of the collectivist, social-democratic state the government had been trying to build since 1999."

"It should also be noted that the problems of crime, inflation and food shortages mentioned as reasons for protesting ar are issues that least affect the wealthy and disproportionately affect the poor."

"The fate of Castro-ism may be at play in Venezuela,' Mr. Pardo said. 'What we were not able to topple in Cuba, we may be able to topple there.'" - THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Journalists coming from elite backgrounds are increasingly distanced from the everyday reality of the population, and are less likely to share the views of the majority and less likely to report on problems affect- ing the working-class. In more unequal countries like Venezuela, this problem is exacerbated."

[sommer🍉 · Rating 4 out of 5]

All in all an excellent analysis of the reality of western media bias against chavismo and Venezuela, especially necessary read in the context of the recent U.S. coup and kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Four stars solely because it only covers up to 2017 and I wished there was more about Maduro’s reign and the controversy surrounding him specifically, particularly in the last 5-10 years.

[Zen Qureshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent dissertation that delves quite deep into the heart of the issues that plague the western media. I always appreciate theses that have an 'empirical evidence' section followed by sources provided at the end of the chapter rather than at the end of the book.
I will never forgive the Miami Herald for tarnishing Chavez's name so immediately after his passing.
After finishing this book, I visited Maduro's wikipedia page (out of curiosity) and it is insane that everything this book highlighted is repeating itself in the same exact way with Maduro. He's basically listed as a dictator, despite there being no real evidence (as of writing this) of electoral fraud. It is a shame that Maduro does not have the leadership capabilities of Chavez, but the alternative is a neoliberal CIA-backed puppet that will sell the soul of Venezuela.
Anyway, I have a few minor gripes with the book. Firstly, I feel like the latter half tended to repeat previously mentioned points quite a bit. Secondly, the mention of increasing GDP as an indicator of Venezuelan progress didn't sit that well with me. Remember: if you can't afford to pay bills and get into debt to cover them, the GDP still goes up. If we're condemning neoliberalism, lets also condemn the measures they've normalised as indicators of a "good economy". Either way, it's good that the thesis also included other measures, such as the poverty index and the increased levels of literacy to indicate true progress.

¡Viva Chávez! ¡Viva la revolución!

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting to see the data and facts even from sources we couldn't say are too "fond" of the Venezuelan government...the IMF, World Bank, Jimmy Carter Center for example, which contradict the picture painted in our heads about Venezuela given to us by Western journalists and their wealthy sources in Caracas who disregarded these facts, using manipulated information or out right lying to manufacture consent for a 20+ year regime change and hybrid war waged against Venezuela by the Neoliberals to return the country back to the same "order" it was before the revolution. I was particularly interested in how they presented the 2002 coup of Chavez when fascists tore up the constitution and dissolved every branch of the government, while thanking the private media for the role they played and closing down the minority of government media in the country - western journalists didn't seem at all that bothered!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an academic book specifically building on the Propaganda Model proposed by Herman and Chomsky. If you are unfamiliar with this topic it may be a good idea to start with "Manufacturing Consent"

This book is a condensed version of Mcleod's PhD thesis which is an in-depth study of media coverage on Venezuela. In contains numerous interviews with Latin american journalists and corespondents. It also contains a brief history of the Chavez presidency leading up to Maduro.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of media bias and propaganda. If you are looking for an in depth explanation of the economics of Venezuela which lead to massive inflation and food crisis, this is not the book for you, although the topic is touched on briefly.

[Zachary Rosengarten · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely pertinent read, it has become increasingly important to try to gleam an understanding of the current situation of Venezuelan from a non-Western media perspective. It was quite eye-opening to learn of how little of a margin there is between ostensibly liberal and conservative press coverage of the Venezuelan government, but perhaps this is to be expected of any major challenge to the neoliberal hegemony.

[Theroadtosedition · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The research is good and important but this book couldve desperately needed an editor. I assume they just published his dissertation without attempting to polish it at all. Either way, quick read with some good info on the 2 decade long propaganda war against Venezuela.

[Court · Rating 5 out of 5]

There really needs to be an updated version of this book covering the insanity of the Juan Guaido debacle and the most recent elections, but this is still a great overview of both Venezuelan politics and the absurdly biased view of the country promoted by American media.

[Roan24 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important and informative book