My guest today is Elizabeth Godo, a media studies student from Toronto, who has written an excellent analysis of the US media’s treatment of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Video of Jon Stewart on “CROSSFIRE”
Elizabeth recently went through all of the New York Times’ coverage of Chavez over several years and picked out the recurring labels used to describe him: “ex-coup leader”, “leftist”, which, as she says, “repeatedly establishes the context within which the American audience is lead to evaluate President Chavez.”
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A Canadian is going to write about US media perspective on a Venezuelan. Hmmm if she lived in the US that might seem logical, but since she lives in Toronto how much of a full perspective can she get? Okay so she did an in depth study of what the NY Times said I can accept that as a valid study, but to claim it represents the US media seems off base Cam. But then maybe that’s just me.
Actually the Canadian perspective on the US media is an important one, as the US itself is often too enveloped in their own mediated reality to even realize the biases around them. It’s comparable to the idea that if anyone were to discover water, it wouldn’t likely be a fish – water is something a fish by its very nature takes for granted, and wouldn’t know of the world in any other way. Canada has an interesting perspective based on its connection to Britain and the rest of Europe, contrasted with its geographical position above the states and its constant battle against being overtaken as just another part of the US market. If anything, we’re close enough to see what’s going on, but far enough away to look at the situation objectively.
As for the focus on the NY Times, it’s simply a matter of simplifying an otherwise overwhelming amount of data, but the NY Times itself is often looked to throughout the US as the example to follow. Individual case studies of CNN, certainly Fox News, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, etc. all yeilded the same results, but for the purposes of this discussion, the NY Times was chosen to represent them in a more concise way.
So Thomas are you suggesting that the NYT might have a bias but the rest of the US mainstream media doesn’t? I’ve always thought that the NYT was supposed to be this wonderful bastion of journalism… Iraq beat-up and recent fraudulent story embarassments aside… but I’m a dumb Aussie, what do I know?
Cameron
This was a most unusual podcast. it strayed from its headline to cover the madness of news stories reference bird flu and mad cow disease.
So getting back to Hugo Chavez why would a rational person wish to consider that he is demonised by the news media. In fact his support of the Robert Mugabe regime (Times UK 20th March) would tell us that is what to expect and he probably nurtures this demonisation.
Elizabeth quotes that people should have a right to freedoms of speech and i would have thought Hugo Chavez most certainly gets that. I wonder if the people of Venezuela are afforded the same rights and freedoms.
Bill – not so unusual. The show was about US media bias and why it occurs. Coverage of bird flu and mad cow disease were examples of how certain issues get distorted by the media to engender fear in the populace.
Does the US’s support of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 80s mean we should expect more of the same from them?
It would be interesting to do a similar review of the Western media’s coverage of Mugabe. Whilst he is generally vilified in Western media these days, according to Wikipedia:
Mugabe retains some popularity throughout Africa. For example, in 2004 the monthly magazine New African had its readers vote for the “100 greatest Africans” last year, Mugabe won a third-place finish, topped only by Nelson Mandela and Ghanaian independence hero Kwame Nkrumah. In addition, in December 2005, Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s former long-time leader, voiced support for Robert Mugabe, stating that the Zimbabwean president “would pull through because he enjoyed the support of ordinary Zimbabweans who were punished for claiming back their land.” Mugabe’s supporters tend to dismiss much of the criticism as being racially motivated, and characterize it as being little more than the bitter remarks of those who have been disadvantaged by his policies.
Not to mention:
Robert Mugabe was created an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II. This entitles him to use the postnominal letters KCB, but not to use the title “Sir”.
Eduardo Galeano said of Chavez that “he was a neccesary demon” like Castro.
No soft peace loving leader would survive two seconds under the kind of U.S. pressure that exists in Latin America.
http://newleftreview.org/A2524
To get a better understanding of why things are the way they are throughout the Americas read this classic ‘Open Veins Of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano’
Cameron, I would have to argue against Mugabe being accepted as a positive figure. In fact, he’s a monstrous tyrant and plague upon Africa. First off, many of his awards and honorary titles have been stripped from him in recent years. He also uses brutal force to surpress political opposition. He’s cited by Human Rights Watch as torturing his own people, as well as foreign visitors and those attempting to report the situation in Zimbabwe. He took the most prosperous nation in Africa and turned it into the most impoverished, and direclty due to him it has, if I’m not much mistaken, the world’s highest inflation rate. He also is one of the few leaders in history to have state-sponsored murder, where he went on the media and openly told his supporters to go out and murder any and all whites, especially landowners, rather than negotiate or try to settle. The British were cruel overlords in Zimbabwe, granted, but nowhere near as terrible as Mugabe is. And I found it hilarious that even CHINA thought his record was bad, and refused him entry to their country for the 2008 Olympic Games when he was already en-route! His titles mean nothing. Nothing he has done has in any way compensated for his attrocities and totalitarian usurption of the presidency of Zimbabwe.