<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><br><div dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/" target="_blank">http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/</a><div>
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2014</div></div><h1 style="line-height:28px;font-size:26px;background-color:rgb(230,230,230);margin:0px 0px 10px;font-family:'PT Sans',san-serif;font-weight:normal;padding:0px">NYT Corrects Venezuela TV Falsehood</h1>

<div style="font-size:17px;margin:10px 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(85,85,85);font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:24px;background-color:rgb(230,230,230)">By <span><span><a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/author/peter-hart/" title="Peter Hart" rel="author" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">Peter Hart</a></span></span> <span style="background-image:url(http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/themes/lexicon/images/icon-comments.png);margin:0px 0px 0px 33px;padding:0px 0px 2px 18px;font-size:12px;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat"><a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/#respond" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">Leave a Comment</a></span></div>

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<a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Venevision.png" rel="lightbox[28072]" title="Opposition politician on Venezuelan TV" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank"><img title="Opposition politician on Venezuelan TV" alt="Venevision" src="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Venevision-300x202.png" width="300" height="202" style="border:1px solid rgb(0,0,0);float:right;margin:0px 0px 20px 10px;padding:0px;display:inline"></a>On <a title="NYT: Protests Swell in Venezuela as Places to Rally Disappear" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/world/americas/protests-swell-in-venezuela-as-places-to-rally-disappear.html" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">February 21</a>, a report in the <strong>New York Times</strong> by <a title="FAIR Blog: NYT Debates Hugo Chavez--Minus the Debate" href="http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/03/08/nyt-debates-hugo-chavez-minus-the-debate/" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">William Neuman</a>about a supposed clampdown on dissent in Venezuela started out with this bold claim: </p>

<blockquote style="background-image:url(http://fair.org/blog/wp-content/themes/lexicon/images/blockquote.png);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:15px;margin:0px;padding:0px 28px 20px 38px;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat">

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government was sold last year and the new owners have softened its news coverage.</p></blockquote><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">

This struck some observers, like Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic & Policy Research (<a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/does-venezuelan-television-provide-coverage-that-opposes-the-government" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/24/14</a>), as totally overblown, since opposition figures do in fact appear routinely on Venezuelan television. As he pointed out, the Carter Center studied media coverage during the country's presidential election last year, and found that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles received much more coverage than President Nicolás Maduro, whose campaign enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in state-owned media.</p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px"><a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/globovision.png" rel="lightbox[28072]" title="Speaking about anti-government protests on Venezuelan TV" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank"><img title="Speaking about anti-government protests on Venezuelan TV" alt="globovision" src="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/globovision-300x166.png" width="300" height="166" style="border:1px solid rgb(0,0,0);float:left;margin:5px;padding:0px;display:inline"></a>As for protest coverage, Weisbrot shows that opposition leaders appeared on television as the protests were underway, in particular on<strong>Venevision</strong>, a widely watched outlet. </p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">So it's not clear why the <strong>Times</strong> would suggest that there was only one channel that featured opposition voices, and that it seemed less likely to do so now.</p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px"> Writer and activist Robert Naiman wondered too, so he wrote to the <strong>Times</strong>(2/25/14) to ask whether they would print a correction. </p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">

They would not.  Louis Lucero II, the paper's assistant to the senior editor for standards, who wrote this:</p><blockquote style="background-image:url(http://fair.org/blog/wp-content/themes/lexicon/images/blockquote.png);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:15px;margin:0px;padding:0px 28px 20px 38px;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat">

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">We remain confident in the factual accuracy of the central assertion of our sentence (that the only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government was sold last year), but you seems to take issue with the less clearly disprovable claim that the new owners have adopted a less critical tack when covering the government. Accordingly, I'm afraid a contrary assessment from the CEPR doesn't quite rise to the level of the empirical counter-evidence we require to correct a claim made in our articles.</p>

</blockquote><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">This is an odd response,  seeming to misunderstand the complaint. The paper was suggesting that there was only one TV station regularly featuring anti-government views in Venezuela last year, and that it would be less likely to do so now. That is, at best, totally misleading. </p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Naiman's group started a <a href="http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/nyt-fix-your-false-reporting" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">petition</a> to get the <strong>Times</strong> to correct the story. Lo and behold, the <strong>Times</strong> corrected the story: </p>

<blockquote style="background-image:url(http://fair.org/blog/wp-content/themes/lexicon/images/blockquote.png);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:15px;margin:0px;padding:0px 28px 20px 38px;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat">

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px"><b><i>Correction: February 26, 2014 </i></b><i></i></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px"><i>An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to <strong>Globovision</strong>. Before its sale last year, it broadcast more voices critical of the Venezuelan government than any other TV station, but it was not the only one to regularly feature government critics.</i></p>

</blockquote><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">As is often the case, the correction obscures the central problem with the piece: that it reported erroneously that Venezuelan TV is a place where voices critical of the government do not appear. </p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Interestingly, Neuman wrote another piece (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/world/americas/in-venezuela-middle-class-joins-protests.html?ref=todayspaper" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/25/14</a>) about protests in San Cristobal, an opposition stronghold in the western part of the country. It included this observation: </p>

<blockquote style="background-image:url(http://fair.org/blog/wp-content/themes/lexicon/images/blockquote.png);background-color:rgb(255,255,255);font-size:15px;margin:0px;padding:0px 28px 20px 38px;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat">

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Nearby, a neighbor, Teresa Contreras, 53, flipped through the channels on her television, showing that there was no coverage of the violence, a sign, she said, of the government control over the news media.</p>

</blockquote><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Is the idea that any protest anywhere that isn't being covered in real time by television is evidence of state control of the media? That would be an interesting standard to apply to the US press. </p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Meanwhile, the <strong>Times</strong> ran an op-ed by Francisco Toro (<a title="NYT: Rash Repression in Venezuela" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/opinion/rash-repression-in-venezuela.html" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/24/14</a>), a Venezuelan expatriate whose <a title="FAIR Blog: News From Venezuela--but Where Is It Coming From?" href="http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/22/news-from-venezuela-but-where-is-it-coming-from/" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">blog post</a> accusing international media of ignoring a "tropical pogrom" against demonstrators in Venezuela was hugely popular on social media–despite the fact that he later described it as an "overstatement in the heat of the moment" (<strong>Twitter</strong>, <a title="Twitter: BoringDev" href="https://twitter.com/BoringDev/status/437974589931397120" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/24/14</a>).</p>

<div style="float:right;margin:0px 0px 0px 10px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;padding:10px 0px 0px 10px;border:0px solid rgb(221,221,221);width:310px"><a href="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Venevisi%C3%B3n.jpg" rel="lightbox[28072]" title="NYT Corrects Venezuela TV Falsehood" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank"><img title="" alt="Screenshot from Venevision." src="http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Venevisi%C3%B3n-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" style="border:1px solid rgb(0,0,0);margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 5px"></a><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px;font-size:12px;line-height:13px">

Venevisión covers the speech that wasn't covered.</p></div><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Toro's op-ed declared that "to the Venezuelan government, all dissent is treason"–citing as an example a speech by opposition leader Henrique Capriles: "Few outside the rally heard him, however, because government pressure ensured that no broadcast media carried coverage of the event."</p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">According to NACLA (<strong>Manufacturing Contempt</strong>,<a title="Manufacturing Contempt: Letter to New York Times: Correct Francisco Toro's Error on Venezuela" href="http://nacla.org/blog/2014/2/26/letter-new-york-times-correct-francisco-toros-error-venezuela" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/26/14</a>), though, Capriles' speech was covered by both<strong><a href="http://globovision.com/articulo/capriles-los-venezolanos-que-piensan-distinto-no-son-fascistas" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">Globovisión</a></strong> and <strong><a title="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXiCZVVy5K8" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">Venevisión</a></strong>.</p>

<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 15px">Asked about the discrepancy, Toro (<strong>Twitter</strong>, <a title="Twitter: BoringDev" href="https://twitter.com/BoringDev/status/438777420800598016" style="color:rgb(89,109,159)" target="_blank">2/26/14</a>) responded: "There was no live coverage." Can you imagine living in a state so repressive that  speeches by government opponents aren't covered live?</p>
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</div><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr">Robert Naiman<br>Policy Director<br>Just Foreign Policy<br><a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">www.justforeignpolicy.org</a><br><a href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a><br>
<div><span style="text-align:left">(202) 448-2898, extension 1.</span><br></div></div>
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