A German Broadcaster’s Gutter Journalism about Venezuela [View all]

[polly7]

By Joe Emersberger
Source: teleSUR English
February 13, 2015

.....DW shows part of El Universal’s front page for February 4, 2015, and below the snapshot tells readers “the front page of ‘El Universal’ has become a mouthpiece for government ministers.“ Had DW shown the entire front page, people who could read Spanish would notice that one of the headlines was “Merchants Reject Interventions.” That headline was for an article that conveyed only the views of the Caracas Chamber of Commerce about the government’s crackdown on practices allegedly responsible for shortages. The business group “warns that the crisis will deepen if rights are not respected,” according to El Universal’s report.

..........

Like countless inaccurate (or deliberately dishonest) articles about Venezuela that appear in the international media, DW cites Reporters without Borders and Human Rights Watch (HRW) to supports claims that “journalists have taken to censoring themselves out of fear.”

Reporters without Borders applauded two years of very brutal dictatorship in Haiti that followed a U.S.-perpetrated coup in 2004 as a big step forward for press freedom. HRW very recently declared the United States to be “the most powerful proponent of human rights.” HRW can’t see a problem with the revolving door it has with U.S. government officials, and it is happy to have Javier Solana, a man who should be prosecuted for war crimes on its board for many years.

I am sometimes tempted (only tempted and only sometimes I should stress) to cut corporate journalists a tiny bit of slack for distorting Venezuela’s economic situation. Reporters may lack the confidence to challenge what big credit rating agencies and many establishment economists say. But even in that case, the global meltdown of 2008/2009, which exposed most “experts” in economics as incompetent or worse, should have taught reporters to cite them much more skeptically and to diversify their sources. Regarding Venezuela’s media, there is absolutely no excuse for spreading lies. Any reporter who is honest, hardworking and courageous enough to break from the media herd should be able to report accurately. Anybody can read newspapers and watch TV.

Recently, a former editor of a major German newspaper said he planted stories written for him by the CIA. I’m skeptical of the prevalence of that kind of corruption. I’ve discussed in the past why I believe even honest corporate journalists will spread lies. I don’t think Jan D. Walter’s article was written by the CIA, but it might as well have been.

Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/a-german-broadcasters-gutter-journalism-about-venezuela/

Not surprising to see who is bent on distortions and lies regarding Venezuela. It all plays into the same agenda. Sickening.