“In Venezuela, no television channel has been closed despite the fact that in many cases the television channels supported a coup d’etat,” Reuters reported Hugo Chávez as saying.

Chávez’s statement should be followed by a disclaimer reminding readers of his highly publicized Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) shutdown in 2007, for playing footage of soldiers shooting unarmed protesters during the 2002 coup attempt against him. Read the whole article. Where is the correction? Chávez shut down RCTV. That is a fact.

Reuters should print a retraction, I’ve emailed them about it. What’s more worrying is that it is their most popular article at the moment.

A glance at CNN’s headlines recently show how much the network has abandoned impartial reporting. Headlines include:

• “Could George W. Bush end up behind bars?” when it is the CIA operatives who are being investigated
• “Anti-Chavez marches fail to draw crowds”, when there were thousands of people marching.
• “More Radio Closures Coming in Venezuela”, according to CNN’s report only “critics” are calling it a “crackdown on freedom of expression”, where is their outrage?

I am not smearing CNN because of personal dislike. Like most of my readers, until a few months ago, CNN was my favorite news source. I am merely drawing attention to the lack of balanced reporting on their part. Perhaps the good side of all this hypocrisy is that more people now read the news with their guards up, and take all things they say with a megadose of salt.

Image by Alejandra Quiroz, used with a Creative Commons license

Whoever broke into the studios of Pro-Zelaya radio station Radio Globo and TV’s channel 36, and threw acid into the transmitters, did his country a great disservice, for whatever reason they did it.

Yes I am against the message the station and TV channel broadcast, but this type of attack only legitimizes them.

Hugo Chávez has denied his goverment was behind today’s attacks on opposition television station Globovision.

The protesters used tear gas canisters against the last TV station daring to be critical of Chávez. Lamentable actions, hopefully this removes Chávez’s spell on the international media, and reminds the of what he has said, who he is, and the consequences. It is no longer necessary for him to act. His followers will do it for him, and he can plausibly deny responsibility.

Let’s conduct a small test: there are two sides to the reporting of yesterday’s clashes between the police and Zelaya’s supporters. Let’s see which side, if any, the international media report.

Zelaya’s side: as reported by Telesur. They interviewed a leader named Juan Barahona who called yesterday’s actions, “the most brutal repression that we have lived. They fell on us like enemies, like the oppressors of the people that they are. They took us to the police station that is in Barrio Belén. They released us at five in the afternoon because of the efforts of human rights associations and the pressure of the resistance outside.” He denounced the aggression against a teacher who was shot, and hovers between life and death. “We are fighting against the coup presided by the oligarchs, this repressive coup that has suspended the individual rights of citizens.” he said. Telesur also reported that Carlos Reyes, the presidential candidate for the “popular sector was repressed by the military forces”.

The police’s side: as reported by El Heraldo. “Orders were clear, any manifestation that affects free mobilization of people will be dissolved. Police action was motivated by acts of vandalism committed by people infiltrated among the manifestation. The road block … began at 9:00am in the El Durazno sector, with 1,500 people, composed of union members, leaders of teachers unions and members of the Bloque Popular”. When dislodged, the manifestation decided to move toward the center of the city, sacking businesses in the Belén market. “The police, who followed them, stopped them from committing these acts of vandalism, for which they recieved the applause of the neighbors of the place, saying that they were tired of a few people keeping the country in anxiety. A teacher, named Roger Vallejo was wounded in the head … 80 people were arrested and released hours later.

Telesur shows it’s criminally low standards of journalism, their report was false…Micheletti has not given an official statement, and will do so tomorrow. Telesur, hasn’t updated it’s website to reflect this. As if it surprises me.

Journalism in the world is a cesspool of corruption. The media sell “truth” to the highest bidder. There is no such thing as impartial journalism, sadly. The supposed suppression of opposing media in Honduras is reality a shutdown of people who had sold their ethics and were simply repeating what they were hired to say. There is ample evidence of the dishonesty of Zelaya’s government in this.

Yesterday the district attorney of Tegucigalpa uncovered a call center designed to fabricate “popular support” for Mel Zelaya’s referendum. There were fiber optic cables, telephones, recorders there. On the desks were scripts with the messages operators were to say, pretending to be supporters of Zelaya. The operators had false names, and false places where they were supposed to be from. The center employed 80 people, and operational costs were over half a million lempiras a month. The contract for the rent of the place was signed by ex-minister Enrique Flores Lanza.

What were these people doing? Calling every radio and TV station in favor of Mel Zelaya, to create the illusion of popular support. They were also leaving comments in all major news outlets in favor of Mel Zelaya. Direct shameless media manipulation.

Reporters Sans Frontières has issued a report of the attacks on the media during the crisis. People on both sides of the political equation appear on the list. Respected El Heraldo cartoonist Allan McDonald is in hiding, for instance. Esdras Amado Lopez, which was implicated in a YouTube scandal months ago which an anonymous contributer named “Juana Pueblo&rdquo exposed, among other things, that the government was paying journalists to “tone down” comments when Marcelo Chimirri was being accused of corruption.

The video above is one of those recordings. The rest can be found in Juana Pueblo’s Youtube channel. It preserves the conversation between now deposed president Mel Zelaya and current interim president Roberto Micheletti, a few years ago. In the conversation, Micheletti counsels Zelaya to “denounce” Chimirri, although he admits Chimirri was Zelaya’s friend.

Chávez is using the corrupt media to pollute democracy so much, that it is now in the name of democracy that he fights against true freedom. We need to defend ourselves by discerning truth from error, and not throwing ourselves at the mercy of rants reminiscent of Orwell’s two minutes hate. No media outlet is deserves our trust, whatever their political slant. Saldy, we need to rescue as many people of possible from the illusion that what they see on television, or read in the newspaper is the truth.

In a 5183-word article, 2009 Honduran Constitutional Crisis, Wikipedia has shown once more why user-generated media are so important in the information era. There are no less than 123 citations referenced in the article, which is clear, concise and what’s more, presents both sides of the issue. Take some time to read it, please.

Image from the Wikimedia Commons

If you can stand 10 minutes of a rambling Chavez without dramamine, listen to the nugget at the end of this video, (9 minutes 30 seconds). Chavez admits infiltrating CNN even before becoming president in 1997! He said he wanted to take over CNN back then, failed, but that “the people are still there. CNN, we have them infiltrated.”

CNN en Español’s chief correspondent for Central America, Krupskaia Alis Rumazo, was “third secretary” in then dictator Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua in 1990, acording to this Heraldo article. The article quotes the Nicaraguan government’s gazette, edition 78, in case you might think they’re lying.

Chavez News Network indeed, no wonder CNN published all those lies. I have chills and am almost trembling. In this video Chavez quotes Marx’s Communist Manifesto on camera, and has the gall to defend democracy.

Just when we thought Bush comedic moments were over, we hit the jackpot! Nikita Krushchev once removed a shoe and banged it on his desk at the United Nations general assembly to protest a Philippine delegate’s speech. But this, I think will be more memorable: Bush ducking to avoid an enraged reporter’s shoes, who shouted: “Consider this a goodbye kiss from the Iraqui people, you Dog!”

As you probably have read elsewhere today, this is the ultimate worst insult in Muslim culture. If Bush had continued in office, I bet his security detail would ask reporters to remove their shoes next time he spoke at a press conference. I doubt Obama would need that.

Those shoes are now worth thousands on Ebay.