Left I on the News

A few days ago I noted that news coverage of demonstrations in Venezuela against proposed Constitutional changes had failed to note that these changes were subject to a referendum of the Venezuelan people, democracy at its finest. The coverage was true, but not the whole truth.

And the other aspect of that "not covering the whole truth" are the things that get left out entirely. The other day we had an example locally, when the San Jose Mercury News failed to print a word about the 30,000 people who demonstrated against the war in nearby San Francisco (even while printing an article about similar numbers of people demonstrating in Venezuela). Today we return to Venezuela to note a demonstration of hundreds of thousands of people in support of the proposed Constitutional changes there. There is an AFP story on the event, although I can't find a word of coverage in any American newspaper, and there was certainly no coverage on the nightly news last night.

"All the news that's fit to print"? Not this story, because it doesn't "fit" with the imperialist line that Chavez is a dictator, squelching democracy in his country, a "threat" for whom a two minutes hate must be regularly orchestrated. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in support of such a man? Wouldn't want to let people know about that!

Needless to say, this is not a new phenomenon. Back in June exactly the same thing happened - anti-government demonstrations covered in the American corporate media, much larger pro-government demonstrations ignored (except, curiously enough in that case, by FOX News!).