[Peace-discuss] Joanna Hausmann is a comedian

[David Green]

A recent video opinion piece published by *The New York Times* intended to
drum up support for U.S. involvement in Venezuela failed to disclose the
author's ties to the opposition government, leading to criticism from
progressives of the paper's coverage.

Joanna Hausmann, a comedian who posts highly viewed articles on Venezuela
on YouTube, delivered
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/contributors/venezuela-us-hands-off-joanna-hausmann.html>
a
five minute, thirteen second opinion piece at the Times Monday in which she
claims that the country's leader, President Nicolas Maduro, is a dictator
and that the American left are his patsies.

"This movement is dangerously glorifying a brutal dictator and promoting
inaction," Hausmann says in the video as quirky music plays behind her.
"That is the worst combination for ordinary Venezuelans."

Hausmann also claims that the country's economic problems are the fault of
decades of socialist rule and that the path forward is a future without
Maduro—it's implied, though never outright stated, that the answer is for
opposition leader Juan Guaidó to take power.

What the video and the *Times* did not reveal is that Hausmann's
father, Harvard University economics professor Ricardo Hausmann, currently
serves as  Guaidó's envoy
<https://www.voanews.com/a/guaido-names-hausmann-as-venezuela-s-idb-representative/4813590.html>
to
the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). It's a position that, if
Guaidó became president, would wield immense political and economic power.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/02/weak-journalism-nyt-fails-disclose-op-ed-writers-close-family-ties-venezuelan
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