Media Coverage in Venezuala

New Left Project, 10 February, 2010
Venezuela and the BBC
by Lee Salter

Dr. Lee Salter is the leader of the journalism programme at the University of the West of England. He spoke to NLP about his current research into BBC coverage of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

You are currently researching the BBC’s coverage of Venezuela. Why is this an important topic to research? Why does the way in which the BBC covers Venezuela matter?

In the first instance it is not just the BBC’s coverage of Venezuela that is important. Scholars looking at news and journalism have shown concerns about the reporting of foreign affairs for decades now, and have observed patterns of media performance that give cause for serious concern - especially in terms of the way in which the world views of economic and political elites are reflected in news coverage. These concerns were most notoriously reflected in the (usually misunderstood) work of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. The BBC has - at least in the rhetoric, which is codified into Producer Guidelines and so on, a crucial duty to report accurately to British audiences. If the BBC fails to do this, not only are there legal questions to be asked, but there are also moral issues to be reflected on: BBC News has a duty to provide accurate information that citizens can use as the basis for participation in democracy.

To my mind the coverage of Venezuela has particular importance mainly because it is a case in which a democratically mandated government faces a plethora of reactionary forces seeking to destabilise and overthrow it. Even the slightest dip into history shows what the rich are capable of, as seen in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil between the 1960s and 1990s. We have already seen in 2002 what the so-called “opposition” will do in Venezuela, and the BBC’s potential complicity in an orchestrated “strategy of tension” (if only through bad reporting) is something that must be considered.

Indeed, right from the start it seems that the BBC had made up its mind about the Venezuelan government - barely a year after its first election victory (and remember that Chavez has been elected several times by far greater margins than any post-war UK government, and all of which were observed by regional and international observers), the BBC published an opinion piece which referred to “Venezuela’s Dictatorship”, in which the author was allowed to make an unopposed analogy between Chavez and Adolf Hitler! So from the outset it was clear there was an agenda to oppose the democratic decision of the Venezuelan people.

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