How do we recruit serious Venezuelan journalists, or those in formation and writers to explain the current situation here in Venezuela? The World really doesn't explain it clearly.

in #informationwar6 years ago (edited)

With the launch of @primeraplana, my new Venezuelan news aggregation project, I found out a lot of things that have to be mentioned:

  • No news agency gives a clear explanation of what's happening in Venezuela. Mainstream media only focuses in their target demographics. Most of the news focuses on tabloid-type news, economic statistics, and the main news that could be relevant for some. But they're not really helpful to clearly explain what's happening. No mainstream media outlet has covered the big power of the Venezuela military in ALL the government institutions since Hugo Chavez rose in power. This is key to understand why, in this time, there's a dictatorship in Venezuela. I had to Google search this article of last year, and it was pretty down on the first page of the results:

  • Leftist media is doing a damn good job using distorted facts to disinform people who read their news. Let's use Telesur as an example. They did a review of how Reuters whitewashes "gross imperial hypocrisy about Venezuela". And they refer some "facts", some quoted by news from other outlets. I want to quote a brief excerpt of the article:

The Reuters article also says that Venezuela’s economic “collapse has driven an estimated 3 million people to flee the country.” No need to tell readers when the economic “collapse” began—2014—much less who made the estimates or if other sources contradict them. In fact, the U.N.’s 2017 population division numbers estimate Venezuela’s total expat population as of 2017 at about 650,000—only about 300,000 higher than it was when Chávez first took office in 1999. Even a group of fiercely anti-government Venezuelan academics estimated less than 1 million have left since the economic crisis began. (See FAIR.org, 2/18/18.)

Well, in this paragraph they cited two sources to contradict Reuters claims. Fair.org, a leftist media outlet in their article wrote this:

During the years Chavez was in office (1999–2013), the World Bank’s figures tell us Venezuelans living abroad increased by about 330,000. By 2013, Páez was estimating that about 1.3 million had left—about 1 million more than World Bank estimates. Would journalists ignore data published by the World Bank in favor of estimates by Páez if he were a staunch supporter of the Venezuelan government?

The World Bank has not updated migration data past 2013, but there is no doubt there was a huge increase in migration from Venezuela since its economy entered into a very deep crisis starting in late 2014. (For an overview of the important role of US policy in creating the crisis and now deliberately making it much worse, see my op-ed, “US Policy a Big Factor in Venezuela’s Depression”—Tribune News Service, 2/2/18.)

So, the Fair.org article put in contrast 2013 figures shown by someone else regarding the migration of Venezuelans. And now, Telesur uses that article to discredit current figures shown by Reuters, when the original source (the world bank) DOES NOT HAVE THEM?

And now, the U.N. figures. I'll quote Telesur again:

In fact, the U.N.’s 2017 population division numbers estimate Venezuela’s total expat population as of 2017 at about 650,000—only about 300,000 higher than it was when Chávez first took office in 1999.

Well, I did my homework. and I downloaded the U.N. report file. You can download it here.

Just look at the number:

So, the UN reported at the end of 2017, 1.4 million migrants, not 650,000 as they said. They are spreading #fakenews distorting using "facts".

I can relate to those Steemians in good faith who believes this crappy propaganda media disguised as news outlets.

  • US right leaning media just doesn't care about Venezuela. They don't even do serious research of what's happening here. If you want to look for info about Venezuela, don't look for them in Infowars, breitbart, even Zerohedge. They just do poor research or repeat the news from other sources. It's better to look for right leaning news outlets in Spanish and just translate the news. There's vasts resources for news and serious journalistic reports that could be found in Spanish. Just check @primeraplana spanish headlines and see them by yourselves. Infodio.com is ran by venezuelans, and it's a good resource to investigative reports about corruption in Venezuela.

I believe that the main reasons of disinformation about the situation in Venezuela is because of the lack of independent english sources of news. Now more than ever I believe that the Steem Blockchain could be a good place to journalists who are willing to share there reports and investigations in English.

And I encourage you Venezuelans again:

"Surely here we have economists, political scientists, social communicators, statisticians, who can contribute in the dissemination of valuable information to make the world know about what happens in Venezuela. One of the purposes of the Steem Blockchain is precisely that: The exercise of freedom of speech avoiding censorship of centralized social media. LET'S TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT."

My impressions about the "Steem Impact Forum" hosted by @aggroed - @metalmag25

It is our duty to spread the truth. If you agree, i invite you to resteem the post.

The Information War is real.


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I can sympathize with this - very difficult to find any trustworthy news on what is happening there.

What do you think of Abby Martin's journalism on Venezuela?


(has more videos while there too)

She does work for TeleSur now, who you point out in the article. I do like her, understanding that she is a bit biased toward socialism, however her work while in the country was balanced I thought.

She actually went down there which is more than what most 'journalists' have done prior publishing about this subject.

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