Thousands of Venezuelan students have been in the streets of major cities protesting the Chavez governments’ actions against RCTV and what they perceive to be an assault on freedom of speech in general. Perhaps ironically FOX News should be applauded for giving so much coverage to Venezuela – not necessarily a “popular” story. But unfortunately the highest-rated network so thoroughly butchered the truth, that it is not surprising that many Chavez supporters are becoming conspiracy theorists vis-á-vis the US media. In segment after segment, FOX News anchors, along with its main correspondent Adam Housley, told falsehood after falsehood. The issue here has nothing to do with condemning or supporting Hugo Chavez. This is about how FOX News spread demonstrably false information on several occasions over the course of a week. The manipulation of fact was so extreme, that one has to wonder if it was deliberate.

FOX News viewers, who are not ordinarily connected to Venezuelan news, would likely believe that there is no longer any “opposition” media in that country – or at the most, perhaps one “small cable network” called Globovision. They would think this because FOX’s correspondent in Caracas told them this falsehood over and over again. On May 28th, during “Your World” with host David Asman, he said that Chavez was “taking over just about every [media outlet] in Venezuela” and added that RCTV was just “the latest.” In fact, RCTV is the only media outlet that can arguably said to have been “taken over.” The other stations – Televen, Venevision, and Globovision – continue to be privately owned and broadcast opposition voices (though the first two regularly balance them with government spokesmen as well). But this reality didn’t stop Housley from saying on the next day’s program that RCTV was “the last private and large television station here in the country that…was critical of the Chavez administration.” If Housely would have just turned on the other stations in the morning (or Globovision at any time of the day) he would have seen opposition members criticizing the Chavez administration. Housley went on to repeat this false characterization of the Venezuelan media landscape on Neil Cavuto’s show as well as “Hannity and Colmes.”

Perhaps Housely will protest that the other private stations don’t qualify as “large” or “national.” While it is true that RCTV had the best frequency reach of all them, only an obsessively literal-minded lawyer could claim that Venevision and Televen are not “national stations.” In fact, according to figures published in the opposition daily El Nacional, the two stations account for a 30-35% share of the Venezuelan audience. Globovision, the 24-hour station that can nearly be described as “all opposition – all of the time” was described by Housely on “Hannity and Colmes” as a “small cable network” that only reaches “a few” places in the country. Perhaps by “few,” Housley meant the three largest cities and surrounding areas where most Venezuelans live. Furthermore, Globovision has agreements with smaller market stations that carry its programs. Add to this the fact that Globovision is not just a cable station, but is carried on public airwaves and one has to conclude that it is essentially a “national” station as well. [1]

In a very frustrating exchange on “Your World” with Neil Cavuto, Charles Barron, a councilman from New York City tried to explain some of these facts, but was rudely told by Housley that he was “full of baloney.” After being introduced by Cavuto as “someone who is right there,” – thus giving the correspondent undeserved clout – Housley addressed Barron’s contentions: “[Barron] says that there are three private television stations in this country that currently operate. He is absolutely wrong.” Well, Barron was absolutely right, and it only takes about thirty seconds of internet research to confirm this (go to http://www.globovision.com, http://www.televen.com, and http://www.venevision.net). Housley then went on to say that Chavez “has shut down the media all across the country.” He didn’t give any specific examples, probably because to my knowledge, there aren’t any.

But the Barron exchange didn’t end there. Housley went on to interview “the daughter of a political prisoner” who criticized Chavez. The fact that he never put a name to this supposed “political prisoner” who was jailed solely for “having political opinions that were opposed to President Chavez” is suspicious in and of itself (and yet another example of poor journalism). But Barron was more interested in the lack of balance since the young blonde-haired, English-speaking woman was the only Venezuelan interviewed for the segment. Housley fired back at Barron calling him a “son of a bitch” and claiming that in fact he had been reporting from Opposition and Chavista rallies alike. Barron was eventually gracious in accepting Housely at his word. But the real issue isn’t whether Housley was “at both rallies.” The real issue is whether that coverage was making it on to Fox’s programs in a balanced way. It wasn’t. Barron was right to criticize the lack of balance not only on that particular segment, but on FOX’s coverage in general. And what was Barron’s reward for telling the truth about private Venezuelan media and making a fair criticism about unbalanced coverage? Well the next day on “Fox and Friends” the hosts revisited the segment and called Barron “a bit of a Wacko” and “a guy who frequently does not understand what he’s talking about.” Another host made the highly dubious claim that Housley had been broadcasting balanced coverage all week and then recommended that Barron “shut up.”

Perhaps the FOX show with the worst record of “balance” and misinformation in regards to the RCTV issue was “Hannity and Colmes.” In four consecutive segments on Venezuela, the guest “experts” were Maria Conchita Alonso, Otto Reich, Roger Noriega, and Alonso again. [2] Alonso is an actress and anti-Chavez activist who admitted on the first segment that she doesn’t even follow politics. Otto Reich is a strident anti-Castro and anti-Chavez former member of the Reagan and Bush II administrations. Roger Noriega was recently Bush II’s Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Only the liberal Colmes offered any sort of counterpoint, but even he said right from the start that he could no longer defend Chavez for what he described as shutting down the media. In segments that were extraordinary in their removal from reality, Reich claimed that Chavez would likely order the military to kill the protestors, as Reich claimed he has done in the past, Noriega explained to Hannity that the media is so controlled by Hugo Chavez that Venezuelans can’t even see images of the protests, and Alonso went on a rant about how defeated presidential candidate Manuel Rosales was in cahoots with Chavez. She also claimed that Venezuela is cursed with racial animosity that would confuse anyone who actually lives in the largely mestizo country, and went on to say that Chavez owns 65% of the media to which Hannity added “Now he owns it all” [3]. Only the first of these statements has any remote basis in fact, and that is only if you accept a declaration of martial law as being equal to an order to kill protestors [4].

One could practically write a book documenting all the misinformation on FOX News covering just this one issue in less than a week’s time. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect to this story is realizing that FOX News is the most highly rated news station, and yet its hosts and reporters seem unable to do the most basic research. Many of the hosts and correspondents of FOX repeated ad nauseum that Chavez is a “dictator” even though he was democratically elected in December by 63% of the people in an election certified by international observers, including the European Union and the Organization of American States [5]. Claims by some prominent members of the Opposition that there was indeed fraud should be respected and reported, but until the claim is backed up with demonstrable evidence, Fox News shouldn’t be treating this as the accepted truth. The hosts also constantly repeated that there is hardly any media left in Venezuela that is critical of Chavez, when the reality is that one can turn on the television every day to at least three different stations on the public airwaves and find dissent. Furthermore, most of the major dailies take a strong anti-Chavez editorial line. And you don’t even have to be in Venezuela to confirm this. Just go to the websites of El Universal and El Nacional. One has to wonder why Fox correspondent Adam Housely couldn’t go to a kiosk in Caracas and buy a newspaper or simply turn on the television in his hotel room.

The frightening answer to that question may be that he can do those things and he did do those things, but what he discovered did not fit the story that FOX News wanted to tell.

(Adam- stop telling so many lies- ) And what the heck is a kiosk?

Adam- dear-

I found another link- I want you to laugh- as well as others- and I found this trying to hunt down the picture of the day- you know- where exactly you have been-

venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2463

send me the link when it is posted!

Adam

P.s. I might have noted this before …. but in additon to Israeli school ( On strike 43+ days and counting) I take a few courses online via the university of miami online highschool soo i can get an american eduction and diploma college prepatory lol…. Been doing it for 3 years already and so far so good alot of work but i manage to balance israeli school social life and online school all together.

OO and Adam the online highschool has a Online Newspaper and we publish online every 2 months our next issue is out next week or the week after…. I’m the editorial editor … I’ll send you our website when it comes out / or you can just google University of miami online highschool and you can go to the home page and somewhere on the homepage theres a link to the newspaper….

But I bring this up because I just clicked on the links on the article I read earlier and guess what I found-

CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that Venezuela does not need Spanish companies, warning if Spain’s right-wing party wins elections next year its companies would no longer be welcome.

“Spanish companies go away, we really don’t need them,” Chavez said during a news conference at the presidential palace.

My comment- why don’t you, baby Chavez, go away- no one needs you-

Avi gives himself humility because I bet he is good too in math without the calculator-

The only time I did anything worthwhile in math was in Algebra because the teacher was cute- so I paid attention-

And then there is my padre who majored in geology and minored in chemistry- what happened to the gene pool?

While I somehow scored high in math, I don’t miss those days!

Adam

Eerie.

“It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late.

Accordingly, I’m readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I’ll, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials – after the fact.”

Robert E. Lee, 1863

this sounds like a great idea but it would take away from me learning new words because this archaic way of doing this helps me improve my vocabulary and I also learn the definitions- plus the spelling-

But I am going to check it out! definitely-

I read on a couple of posts the math classes you are taking- boy you are smart- I can’t even subtract without a calculator!

I am sure it is hard for your family though, which is why it ticks me off! But you are in great company they hate Bill O too, he is a legend.

you keep putting up the articles en español and I will translate- but I want a cap which reads Adam’s interpreter- I wore my Nike one yesterday and it felt out of place-

I like projects- I translated a consensus for the Commonwealth of Virginia- took me two days!
(it was for the school district)

Victoria- maybe we can take Adam out to dinner- I like Mexican food- how about you and he?
That was a great quote- by the way!

“Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
~Adolf Hitler

You got the main points and that’s what was important.

Adam

Thanks so much for translating the article for the rest of the blog. When I first read it, I was very mad. Mad at the lies and distortions and hypocrisy. Funny, there is an extreme left website that even posted 3 or 4 of my reports and then wrote a huge article claiming that “SEE…ADAM NEVER REPORTED FROMA CHAVISTA RALLY.” These loonies then claimed it was basically a Fox conspiracy. Well, since we conducted about 10 live shots a day for 12 days, I am sure you are going to find a few where I wasn’t standing at a Chavista rally, since the Chavista’s only rallied on three days!! My point is, they will tell whatever lie it takes, like this article. That ticks me off.

Maureen-
I agree with your point, but the poverty level in Venezuela is not 80%. The poverty level has gotten worse since Chavez began his so-called socialist reforms.

Everyone-
Sorry for not being around most of yesterday, I was at a fundraiser that went a bit long. In any case, you guys help up the fort!

Adam

In reference to my translating the article about Beelzebub, I see various careless errors-
Now, in my defense, if I could go and change these I would- and if this had been the final copy, it would have been perfect- so excuse my haste makes waste errors- for the most part they are harmless errors-

So far nothing here from you- will head out to do my things- we were going to go to Wickenburg today but we have decided to do it tomorrow- Rob is setting up his holiday lights- this is the perfect day to do stuff- windy- cold- overcast-

I hope all of those who are really in cold country, you are not freezing-