WOLA: Media's 'Left' Source for Pro-Coup Propaganda in Venezuela
JUNE 4, 2020
LUCAS KOERNER
The mass media, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman documented decades ago, are structurally dependent on pre-ordained experts, who play a decisive role in filtering the information reaching the public.
When it comes to Venezuela, one DC-based think tank has become the Western medias go-to source for confirming the US elites regime change groupthink (FAIR.org, 4/30/19): the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
Styling itself the leading source for independent analysis and commentary on Latin America, WOLA is regularly cited in corporate media reporting on Venezuela across the media spectrum. Founded in 1974 and originally part of the progressive Central American solidarity movement, WOLA moved to the right in the 1990s, until by 2002 it was calling (12/02) for a negotiated and peaceful settlement to the political impasse in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez had been reelected with 60% of the vote two years earlier. But WOLAs progressive reputationbased on its decades-old critiques of Reagan administration Central America policystill allows it to position itself as the gatekeeper of legitimate opposition to US Latin America policy.
WOLAs in-house Venezuela expertsTulane University sociologist David Smilde and former Open Society Latin Americanist Geoff Ramseyexcel at disseminating polite, proceduralist criticisms of US policy while validating the imperial assumptions that justify Washingtons aggression. They demarcate the leftmost extreme of acceptable opinion on Venezuela, effectively boxing out any genuinely dissenting views.
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