The Battle of Venezuela
Michael McCaughan
166 pages
published in 2004
If there’s any subject where the failure of the western news media to fulfil its supposed function of objectively informing its audience is completely uncontroversial, it should be Venezuela. This was especially apparant during the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, when leading western newspapers like The New York Times portrayed it as a democratic uprising against a dictator. It ignored the fact that while Chavez had been democratically elected and had made no attempt to suppress political opposition against his government, the coupists immediately suspended the constitution, started imprisoning Chavez supporters and in generally behave like the traditional juntas off Latin America. Even after the coup failed the agitation against Chavez in western media continued, again portraying him as a dictator and a lunatic for withdrawing the broadcasting licence of a television station heavily involved in the coup. In short, it’s impossible to get an objective view of Venezuela from
the mainstream media.
And while there are alternative news sources that attempt to correct the skewed portrayal of the country, but I’ve found for myself that these are not enough to get the whole picture if like me you don’t speak Spanish. Which is why The Battle of Venezuela was such an excellent find, as here you have a short to the point history of Venezuela and the Boliverian revolution, written by a “proper journalist” with no axe to grind against Chavez. At this length (only 166 pages in the edition I read) you can’t expect an in-depth analysis, but as a general introduction it would be hard to beat.