Venezuelan Government Charges U.S. Government of “Dirty” Media Campaign

In a press conference held yesterday, the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra, denounced "the false information and groundless accusations" made almost on a daily basis in the United States press as a new media war against the people of Venezuela and their government. Izarra affirmed that in light of the large influx of erroneous and de-contextualized information, it is evident that the US private media has joined forces with the US Department of State and spokespeople of the Bush administration in an effort to launch a "smear campaign" against the Venezuelan government. According to Izarra, this "smear campaign" has the objective of undermining the mandate of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in order to, at the very least, destabilize the country, and at the very worst, set the stage for a military intervention. "This new assault appears to be oriented towards de-legitimizing the efforts of the Venezuelan people and the Venezuelan government to democratically advance in order to propel changes towards political, economic, and social progress of our country," asserted the Minister. A common “news” item in the media that Izarra countered was that the Venezuelan government is considering cutting off oil exports to the U.S. "Venezuela is not pursuing nor is it studying any measure to cut the supplies of oil to the United States," Izarra said in response. Izarra's statements were based on his analysis of the content of information published between January and February of 2005 by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Sun Sentinel, CNN, Fox News, Financial Times, and Dow Jones Newswires. Members of the press were invited to the press conference and received several documents that revealed a series of troublesome underlying themes and tendencies in the United States media with respect to their coverage of Venezuela.  [more]

• Pictured above: Communication and Information Minister Andres Izarra holds up an issue of the Miami Herald, which he accuses of being one of the main media outlets in Washington's "smear campaign.