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Hugo
The
Boss
Media criticize ‘greed’ of energy
executives,
but go easy on Venezuela’s oil strongman
By Dan Gainor
The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
See Executive Summary |
PDF Version
Oil prices began to spike in 2005 and the news media eagerly
criticized the “greed” of oil companies and their executives.
Reporters complained about “jaw-dropping profits” or that oil firms
were “taking spending money out of our pockets and making the
country poorer.”
| But there was one oil man the network news shows went
easy on – despite a career filled with human rights violations,
radical rhetoric, crackdowns on the free press and an attempted coup
that cost dozens of lives. He directs operations for the
fifth-largest oil-producing nation in the world and controls one of
the most common company names in the gasoline industry – Citgo. He’s
Hugo Chavez, the openly anti-American president of Venezuela. |
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While broadcast reporters worried about dangers of
foreign firms running American ports, they paid little or no
attention to Chavez and his latest threats to cut off oil to the
United States. According to the Feb. 21, 2006, Financial Times,
Chavez “insisted the U.S. would receive ‘no more oil’ if it ‘crossed
the line’ in its supposed efforts to undermine his ‘revolution.’”
That new threat was acknowledged only by CBS. But all three networks
ignored much of the truth about Chavez and his control of the
second-largest oil supply in the Western Hemisphere.
In January 2006, the “CBS Evening News” did admit “the
volatile president of Venezuela made a veiled threat today to cut
off oil shipments to the United States.” When Chavez’s threats
became more direct in February, CBS didn’t say a thing.
 Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, only
six years after being jailed for trying to overthrow that nation’s
government. Since that time, the three broadcast networks have
reported 139 stories about him, but what is notable is not what’s in
the stories. It’s what the reporters left out. Talk of his or
Venezuela’s oil power was relatively common in those stories, but
only four (3 percent) mentioned his control of Citgo. Chavez’s
much-criticized human rights record received only slightly better
coverage (10 percent). This is the result of a Business & Media Institute
study of broadcast news coverage of Hugo Chavez from Dec. 1, 1998,
the month he took office, to Feb. 26, 2006.
Chavez has actively promoted anti-American protests and
has funded left-wing revolution throughout Central and South
America. Experts estimate he spent $1.5 billion each year from oil
profits to support regimes like Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Despite that,
only 40 percent of the stories made any attempt to label his
politics for what they really are. Roughly 12 percent of the stories
called Chavez a “leftist,” while others simply referred to him as a
“Bush critic” or an “arch enemy of the Bush administration.”
Chavez himself has put it in harsher terms. A Feb. 5,
2006, Reuters report quoted him saying: “The imperialist, genocidal,
fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler
would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush.”
Chavez is far more danger than “critic.” He has
repeatedly sided with a rogues’ gallery of America’s enemies
including Castro and Saddam Hussein, and recently has supported the
Iranian regime’s quest for nuclear weapons. Now, as oil has become
even more essential to American security and prosperity, he sits
atop roughly 14 percent of U.S. crude oil imports.
The confrontation between America and Chavez’s
Venezuela is heating up. In 2006, the two nations have leveled
charges and counter-charges at one another, including an ongoing
Chavez claim that America had planned an invasion. That “threat” was
later found to be a Spanish war game plan. Chavez recently expelled
a U.S. military attaché, accusing him of spying, and Bush countered
by doing the same to a Venezuelan diplomat. On February 24, BBC News
wrote that Venezuela has cut flights between the two countries.
According to that article, starting March 1, “flights by Delta and
Continental Airlines will be cut by up to 70%, and American Airlines
flights will also be affected, officials say.”
That news also went unnoticed by the broadcast
networks.
A Windfall for Network News
But not all oil men were as well-treated by the media
as Hugo Chavez. Big profits for Big Oil were big news in the past
year. Network reporters couldn’t muster enough hyperbole to describe
the success of the other major energy companies. “America’s largest
oil company, ExxonMobil, is reporting some jaw-dropping profits
tonight, record profits in fact for any American company ever,”
gasped anchor Brian Williams in a brief report on the January 30
“NBC Nightly News.”
Williams’s alarm was the typical media position on oil
profits – in this case, the $36.1 billion Exxon earned in 2005.
Business reporter Maria Bartiromo used an identical style in her
Oct. 31, 2005, appearance on NBC’s “Today.” “The oil business is
booming, and it’s the consumer that's getting hit the hardest,” she
said. “Last quarter alone, industry leader ExxonMobil made nearly
$10 billion, a staggering profit.”
Those comments ignored key facts. Of course, Exxon’s
profit was a big number. Exxon is a gigantic company. But in 2004,
Exxon reported lower profit margins than companies in other
industries, including media companies like those that own and
publish major newspapers. In 2005, profits for the world’s largest
oil company were only 9.7 percent of its revenues – far less than
the 2004 Bank of America’s 21.6 percent or Johnson and Johnson’s 18
percent, according to Fortune magazine. Within its own industry,
ExxonMobil was vastly outperformed by Communist China’s state-owned
PetroChina, which yielded nearly a 23 percent profit in 2004.
The media assault wasn’t limited to Exxon. None of the
American oil companies was exempt. When oil executives were asked to
appear in front of Congress to discuss the rise in fuel prices, Chip
Reid of “NBC Nightly News” took the opportunity to demonize them
with a comparison to another much-criticized industry – tobacco.
Reid’s Nov. 9, 2005, story complained that oil executives
“discovered they had a protector, powerful Alaska Republican Senator
Ted Stevens, who gruffly denied Democratic requests that the
witnesses be sworn in.”
That decision, Reid said, “allowed these executives to
avoid the kind of incriminating photo that a decade ago put tobacco
company executives on the nation’s front pages.”
On a “Nightly News” broadcast two weeks earlier, Chief
Financial Correspondent Anne Thompson had turned her attack to
another oil firm. Thompson’s Oct. 28, 2005, story used familiar
anti-industry imagery. “In a summer marked by hurricanes and $3
gasoline, the oil companies struck gold. Today, Chevron joined the
eye-popping profits parade,” Thompson said.
ABC was just as bad. “World News Tonight” anchor Bob
Woodruff introduced his Oct. 27, 2005, “A Closer Look” segment on
oil with another complaint about profits: “The oil companies
reported earnings today that are almost beyond imagination.”
That story followed with a lengthy list of oil critics
who either blamed the high cost of gasoline on the industry or
advocated an extra tax labeled a “windfall profits” tax. Woodruff
reiterated, “Those numbers are just astounding.” Reporter Betsy
Stark agreed.
Summing up the network attack on Big Oil, reporter
Anthony Mason blamed the industry for widespread harm. His Oct. 27,
2005, “CBS Evening News” story depicted the energy firms as
villains. “But those rising prices at the pump are taking fuel out
of the economy, by taking spending money out of our pockets and
making the country poorer,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, another oil man was getting much kinder
treatment from the networks.
‘Terrific Danger’ or ‘Real Star’
“Some people believe I
am a threat to the United States, to democracy. I’ve told them time
and time again that this is not true.”
– Hugo Chavez, May
12, 2002, CBS “60 Minutes”
Whether he’s pitching for the Venezuelan baseball team or pitching
his ideas of “revolution” to nearby nations, Hugo Chavez has worked
hard at getting his face in the media. He has figured prominently in
the news several times since taking office in 1998. A failed 2002
revolt against his leadership thrust Chavez onto TVs across America.
When a nationwide protest all but shut down oil production in 2002
and 2003, all three networks covered the story repeatedly.
In 2005, Chavez received extensive coverage when Pat
Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, called for America to assassinate the Venezuelan leader.
Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” referred to it as “a controversy of
biblical proportions” in his Aug. 23, 2005, report.
All three networks covered Robertson’s initial comments
and his subsequent apology repeatedly – 16 stories in all (12
percent). But Robertson’s other charges that Chavez was a
“strong-arm dictator” and posed a “terrific danger” to the United
States went mostly unnoticed.
A few months later, Chavez did his part to prove
himself a “danger” by leading anti-American protests at a South
American free trade summit. That act still drew positive coverage
from reporter Jessica Yellin of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Yellin
portrayed him as the “wildly popular Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez” and added “it’s clear the real star in these parts is Mr.
Chavez, the protest leader” in her Nov. 5, 2005, broadcast.
Ironically, an Aug. 16, 2004, “NBC Nightly News,”
report actually noted concern had Chavez lost the election. Anchor
Tom Brokaw expressed that sentiment: “There had been concerns that a
Chavez defeat could further disrupt oil supplies.”
Oil has helped Chavez become a barrier to U.S. diplomacy. His verbal
attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush and the
Cabinet have brought the Venezuelan strongman a strong following
including such well-known liberals as anti-war activist Cindy
Sheehan, entertainer Harry Belafonte and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The
United Nations also has honored the Venezuelan leader. In early
February 2006, Chavez received UNESCO's 2005 Jose Marti
International Prize in front of an audience of roughly 200,000
Cubans.
Chavez has paved his way to popularity with oil revenues. The Feb.
9, 2006, Miami Herald reported on a study by Venezuela’s Center of
Economic Investigations that detailed just some of the places he was
sending the Venezuelan funds – “including a $10 billion anti-poverty
fund, $2.4 billion for the purchase of Argentina’s foreign debt
bonds, $4.3 billion in oil and energy projects in Brazil, another
$4.3 billion in oil subsidies and energy infrastructure works in
Cuba.” A Nov. 25, 2005, New York Times article explained that he
spent $1.5 billion per year on “preferential oil deals aimed at
shoring up friendly leftist governments and reducing Venezuela’s
dependence on U.S. sales for its primary source of income.”
At the same time, Chavez has escalated the personal war
of words with American officials in recent months. Not only has he
threatened to cut off oil to the United States, he has been arming
his nation rapidly. The March 24, 2005, Los Angeles Times reported
that U.S. defense officials were worried Chavez was in “a ‘one-man
arms race’ that could destabilize South America for decades.” Those
arms included buying 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Russia and as
many as 50 Russian attack helicopters. The article added that Chavez
was “discussing the purchase of 30 MIG-29 fighter jets.”
The weapons purchases were just another piece of the
puzzle that the networks left out.
‘Left-leaning’ Just Like John Kerry
The network news shows just couldn’t decide how to
characterize Hugo Chavez. He’s made a career out of radical
left-wing politics, leading one coup, supporting another and being
briefly deposed by a third. He spends his nation’s oil profits to
export “revolution” to his country’s neighbors, yet the most common
term the networks used to describe him was as a “leftist.” In 16
separate stories, network reporters decided that word was an apt
description, but rarely did they go further. Overall, 60 percent of
the stories didn’t bother to describe Chavez’s politics in any way.
Both NBC and CBS called him “left-leaning,” a term “CBS
Evening News” reporter Byron Pitts used for Sen. John Kerry
(D-Mass.). In a July 3, 2004, campaign story, Pitts said, “For the
left-leaning senator from Massachusetts, the race for the middle hit
high gear this weekend.”
It wasn’t just Kerry who was “left-leaning.” Carl Quintanilla of
“NBC Nightly News” mentioned how Kerry was “surrounded this week by
a series of left-leaning surrogates – Howard Dean, Ralph Nader” in a
May 23, 2004, story. And CBS also referred to MoveOn.org and former
Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale as “left-leaning”
in two other reports.
ABC’s “Nightline” used the term to refer to several of this year’s
Oscar-nominated pictures. On Feb. 1, 2006, Terry Moran discussed how
few people had seen the nominees like “Capote,” “Syriana,” and
“Brokeback Mountain.” “These low budget, left-leaning movies have
made less money combined than a single comedy, ‘Wedding Crashers,’”
Moran said.
One CBS report was particularly instructive. On the Nov. 4, 2005,
“CBS Evening News,” anchor Bob Schieffer showed the truthful
labeling that many of the network reports lacked. In his
introduction to a story about “anti-American riots,” Schieffer
called Chavez “left-leaning.” However, later in the story he
explained his definition. “I think we ought to underline what you’ve
just said in the piece that these demonstrations were stirred up by
someone who is no friend of the United States. In fact, Hugo Chavez
is Fidel Castro’s best friend.”
When Chavez wasn’t “left-leaning” he was “leftist,” but
again with little information about what it really meant. Reporter
Dan Harris of ABC’s “World News Tonight” helped spell that out in
his Nov. 6, 2005, report: “Venezuelan leftist leader Hugo Chavez,
who led an anti-American rally while talks for free trade were
taking place.”
But “leftists” clearly did more than just lead
“anti-American” rallies. They were active in the U.S. Democratic
Party, according to several reports. Cokie Roberts said as much on
“ABC This Week” on Aug. 22, 1999: “Look, for 20 years, the
Democratic Party ran on the left and with leftists as their
nominees, and they lost.”
Chavez also was called a “Socialist,” “populist,” or
simply a “Bush critic.” “CBS Early Show” reporter Julie Chen
described him as “a fierce critic of President Bush” in her piece
about the Pat Robertson comments on Aug. 23, 2005.
Other “Bush critics” included unhappy Democratic voters
who were moving to Canada and “long-time Bush critic, Bill Burkett,”
who provided the infamous National Guard “documents” to CBS News.
Still, CBS was the best network about labeling.
Forty-four percent of the stories (24 out of 54) gave some
indication of his politics. NBC was the worst. Just 30 percent (9
out of 30) mentioned Chavez’s political bent. The ABC total of 38
percent (21 out of 55) was exactly halfway between the two.
Citgo Is the Left Way to Go
Citgo is one of those company names that can give
Americans goose bumps. It conjures up about a century of serving the
car-driving public from the Model T to the SUV. Baseball fans will
recognize the Citgo sign looming over the left field wall at
Boston’s Fenway Park. Today, there are roughly 13,500 Citgo service
stations around the United States – or an average of more than 260
for each and every state and the District of Columbia.
But while many individual gas stations remain
unchanged, little else about the firm has. Citgo was founded in 1910
as Cities Service Co., but Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), owned by
the nation of Venezuela, acquired 50 percent in 1986 and the
remainder in 1990. “In October 2000, the new president [Chavez]
tightened control over Citgo by naming as company president a former
army general, Oswaldo Contreras. He was the first Venezuelan to hold
the position,” according to the Jan. 12, 2006, USA Today.
That was only the beginning. On April 20, 2005, The New
York Times reported the changes were far more widespread. “Nearly
every high-ranking executive has resigned over the last two years,
including the refining chief, the chief financial officer, the head
auditor and the marketing director,” stated the article. The Times
piece also told of “Mr. Chavez’s efforts to put his loyalists,
including some former military colleagues, in charge of the
company.”
The changing of the guard had begun much earlier, as
“60 Minutes” co-host Steve Kroft explained in a May 12, 2002,
report: “When Chavez replaced the oil company’s top executives with
political appointees, some of whom were radical Marxists, there was
a management revolt.” In 2005, the firm moved its headquarters to
Houston from Tulsa and, according to USA Today, “that saw several
top American executives and the entire board replaced with
Venezuelans.”
Now, the Citgo profits help fund Chavez’s regional
“revolution.” In December 2005, Citgo’s board of directors announced
the annual dividend for 2005 was $785 million, all of which went
directly to the state-owned PDVSA. The New York Times made it clear
how Chavez spends his nation’s wealth. A Nov. 25, 2005, article
showed he spent $1.5 billion per year on “preferential oil deals
aimed at shoring up friendly leftist governments and reducing
Venezuela’s dependence on U.S. sales for its primary source of
income.”
Left-wing groups in the United States have rallied
around Citgo as a way of opposing the Bush administration.
Truemajorityaction.org, founded by Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben
and Jerry’s, encouraged its 150,000 members to support the company
with onetime slogan “Citgo is the right way to go.”
Writing for the left-wing Web site CommonDreams.org,
Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR, urged readers to “Join the BUY-cott”
by shopping at Citgo. “Looking for an easy way to protest Bush
foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate
global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations,” he wrote.
Charity Begins … With Democrats and
Despots
Network viewers recently got a close-up view of how
Chavez uses his oil power for political purposes, and Citgo was the
public relations tool he wielded – delivering low-cost heating oil
to needy Americans right in front of the TV cameras. That giveaway
was so controversial that the The House Committee on Energy and
Commerce is looking into it.
According to the Dec. 7, 2005, New York Times, “Citgo’s delivery of
discounted fuel came after 12 Democratic senators, including Hillary
Rodham Clinton, wrote a letter in October asking the chief
executives of nine major oil companies to use some of their profits
… for government fuel assistance.” The article said Citgo was the
only firm to respond to the request.
All three broadcast networks covered the oil giveaway and even made
the connection to Citgo. In fact, three of the four stories
connecting Citgo to Hugo Chavez in since 1998 were about his
charitable efforts.
All three stories followed a similar template by
focusing on prominent Democrats supporting the program – including
former congressman Joe Kennedy II, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) and
Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.). Reporters didn’t have any
difficulty locating recipients of Chavez’s largesse. Each network
found a poor woman who was more than happy to benefit and downplay
the role of politics – even if ABC and CBS found the same woman.
On the Nov. 22, 2005, “World News Tonight” reporter Dan
Harris introduced Linda Kelly, “a struggling mother of three” who
was getting the oil “courtesy of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.”
Kelly took her cue, saying “I don’t see any political issues. I just
want to keep my family warm.”
Reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera made the connection to
Citgo, but gave Chavez a pass for funding oil to America’s poor. The
poor woman Caruso-Cabrera found was Alice O’Neal who said, reliably,
“To me, If President Bush wants to pay my oil bill, he can pick who
supplies the oil.” Caruso-Cabrera ended her Jan. 15, 2006, “NBC
Nightly News” story underlining that comment: “But to the poor of
the Northeast, the politics don’t matter when it comes to a lower
heating bill,” she said.
The “CBS Evening News” Dec. 10, 2005, broadcast showed
the success of the Chavez political ploy. First, viewers met a
familiar face – oil recipient Linda Kelly – who was struggling with
a low thermostat until Chavez came to her rescue. “It’s their oil.
They can do what they want,” she said. “If they want to give it to
me, I will put – I will gladly take it.”
Reporter Randall Pinkston’s comments made it clear how
impossible it was for the Bush administration to criticize the
handout. “The gift is from Citgo, a company controlled by the
Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez,” he explained. Then
he showed the problem facing the White House. “It’s pretty hard to
criticize any corporation, even one that’s owned by a self-styled
socialist leader, that wants to give away fuel to hard-pressed
Americans.”
While the networks didn’t necessarily see politics behind the gift,
two members of Congress did. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of
the House Energy Committee, and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) expressed
concern about the obvious ploy. They sent a letter to Citgo on Feb.
15, 2006, requesting details:
“Given President
Chavez’s clear anti-American sentiments, his current efforts must be
viewed with concern that he is attempting to politicize the debate
over U.S. energy policy. Indeed, CITGO’s Chief Operating Officer,
Jerry Thompson, recently acknowledged as much in an interview with
USA Today (January 12, 2006, page A1): ‘Being owned by a political
entity [PDVSA] ultimately means, from time to time, you have to do
things with a political bent to them. Heating oil as an example of
that.’”
Human Rights Left Out
The whole issue of human rights was almost foreign to
network treatment of the Chavez regime. The phrase “human rights”
appeared only twice since December 1998 in any story about Chavez.
One of those comments referred to U.S. foreign policy, not to
concerns about rights in Venezuela. The other was an Aug. 24, 2005,
“Good Morning America” interview with the Rev. Jesse Jackson about
Robertson and Chavez, where he made a casual use of the phrase. That
was just one of the few stories (10 percent) that addressed Chavez’s
human rights activities.
The networks had plenty of information – if they had
chosen to use it. On Feb. 21, 2006, the Christian Science Monitor
explained that Chavez said “he may seek to lift presidential term
limits to allow him to run for a third term in 2013.”
The Dec. 12, 2002, “World News Tonight,” showed that
this wasn’t a new idea, but didn’t quite make it clear to viewers
that a leader who won’t leave power is a dictator pure and simple.
“Chavez was democratically elected four years ago. But he is
friendly with Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein, and like them, he has
declared his intention to remain president as long as he wants.”
The rest of the time, viewers were left trying to piece
together clues from media reports. A Sept. 16, 2005, “Nightline” was
unusually informative. That report found numerous ways to paint
Chavez, including “charismatic,” “leftist strongman” and “champion
of Venezuela’s poor.”
Reporter Chris Bury, who used the term “leftist
strongman,” and “60 Minutes” co-host Steve Kroft were about the only
ones on the networks who labeled Chavez’s despotic acts. Kroft, who
made his comments directly to Chavez, softened them by saying
“Here's the way you are perceived in the United States by some
people,” before explaining it was “sort of a – a mixture between
Fidel Castro and Juan Peron – power hungry, left-wing demagogue,
dictator.”
Even a clear-cut case of human rights abuse was
softened on the April 17, 2002, “Nightline.” Reporter John Donovan
gave some essential background: “Chavez was no innocent. He had been
cracking down on the media and the Catholic Church. He had ordered
his troops to fire on demonstrators. He was forging close ties to
Iraq.” However, then Donovan gave Chavez an out: “But here’s the
catch: Chavez was democratically elected.”
“Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts also
whitewashed the bad deeds of Venezuela’s leader soon after the brief
coup attempt against him. “Chavez says he reflected on his mistakes
and is prepared to correct them,” she said in the April 15, 2002,
broadcast, though she made no mention what those “mistakes” might
have been.
The Chavez regime’s human rights record is notorious –
so much so that several left-wing civil rights groups have
complained about his actions. In its 2005 annual report, Amnesty
International complained of deaths, detentions and torture. “There
were violent confrontations between supporters of the opposition and
the security forces throughout the country. Scores of people were
killed and injured. Hundreds more were detained amid allegations of
excessive use of force and torture and ill-treatment.”
That was only the beginning. The analysis continued:
“There were reports of unlawful killings of criminal suspects.
Relatives and those who witnessed abuses were threatened and
intimidated. The lack of independence of the judiciary remained a
concern. Attempts were made to undermine the legitimacy of the work
of human rights defenders.”
The report went into more detail about the government
excesses. “There were continuing reports of unlawful killings of
criminal suspects by members of the police. Relatives and witnesses
who reported such abuses were frequently threatened or attacked. No
effective protection was granted to them despite calls by the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights for the authorities to do so.”
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights took a
similar view of the many abuses rampant in Venezuela. Their 2004
report identified “two issues of great importance relating to the
independence of the judiciary, the provisional status of judges, and
the failure to comply with constitutional rules in appointing
judges, as a mechanism for guaranteeing their impartiality and
independence.” It went on to explain that 84 percent of all judges
were appointed temporarily, leaving them at the whim of the
government.
Human Rights Watch also released a June 2004 report on
the issue of the judiciary titled: “Rigging the Rule of Law:
Judicial Independence Under Siege in Venezuela.” According to that
analysis, “When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías faced a coup
d’état in April 2002, advocates of democracy in Venezuela and abroad
roundly condemned the assault on the country’s constitutional order.
Today Venezuela faces another constitutional crisis that could
severely impair its already fragile democracy. This time, though,
the threat comes from the government itself.”
Even Freedom House, a group founded by Eleanor
Roosevelt more than 60 years ago, complained about Chavez’s actions
with the courts. “The Chavez government has made one of its central
focus points the control of the judiciary, and they have
accomplished it through a variety of means.” Freedom House showed
how bad things really were. “Widespread arbitrary detention and
torture of suspects, as well as extrajudicial killings by the
often-corrupt military security forces and the police, have
increased as crime continues to soar,” said Joseph McSpedon, senior
program manager, in his testimony to Congress Nov. 17, 2005.
Reporter Bill Whitaker of the “CBS Evening News” showed
how far the networks went for “balance” that downplayed Chavez’s
human rights violations. Whitaker’s Dec. 15, 2002, piece detailed
the ongoing attacks on political opponents. “Three anti-Chavez
demonstrators were gunned down last week. Everyone wants peace, but
Chavez supporters insist he must stay.”
Methodology
The Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute
analyzed all 139 stories on ABC, NBC and CBS news and news-related
programs about Hugo Chavez since he took office in December 1998.
Those stories were examined for various information including
politics, human rights, labeling and Chavez’s connection to Citgo.
Any mention of Chavez’s political leanings – either by
network personnel or the people they interviewed – counted as a way
of informing viewers. Similarly, human rights stories included any
mention of human rights failings in that nation – from his plans to
extend the presidency to restraints of other freedoms. The stories
had to include obvious violations of rights. Several stories
mentioned violence or government response but included the backdrop
of civil unrest, making it unclear whether any wrong had been
committed.
Conclusions
The way the networks have covered Hugo Chavez is not a
matter of right and left. It’s a matter of right and wrong, fact and
fiction. The last year has easily proven the media willing to go
after oil companies for almost any action – even running successful
businesses. If that is the network strategy, then it should be fair
to expect the same attitude when it comes to a man who is both
openly anti-American and anti-free press.
Chavez is working to become his generation’s Fidel
Castro. Even in admitting that, the media treat Castro more like a
quaint relic of the Cold War than the murdering thug history would
indicate. Viewers don’t need fluff like the Oct. 30, 2000, piece on
ABC’s “Good Morning America” about Chavez and Castro singing a “show
stopper” of a duet as part of Chavez’s weekly radio address.
Although Chavez doesn’t have the backing of the old
Soviet Union, he does have a massive reservoir of oil on which to
float his goals of power. The media should have more than just a
passing concern about that significant threat.
Even by the networks’ scandalously incomplete coverage
of the Venezuelan regime, Chavez is an enemy of liberty. That should
be the Hugo Chavez who receives in-depth coverage and is clearly
labeled each and every time he appears.
Recommendations
-
If It Walks Like a
Duck: If you put together what the broadcast media have said
about Hugo Chavez, he has clamped down on protest, free speech, the
Catholic Church and is now considering staying in office as long as
he wants. This coming from a man who openly used violence to try and
take over the country. There are terms that accurately report those
kind of actions. “Dictator” would be one.
-
Label Consistently:
Conservatives wouldn’t pretend to group Hugo Chavez with Democratic
presidential candidates John Kerry and Walter Mondale. Why do
network reporters? Is assuming dictatorial powers the same thing as
creating “left-wing” movies like “Brokeback Mountain?” Clearly,
there is no similarity. It is up to reporters to use accurate and
specific terms to make that obvious.
-
Look at Threats:
The ports controversy should have the media looking more
aggressively for potential security threats. They could find plenty
to report about Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Reporters should examine
the looming threat of an oil cutoff coupled with a leader even the
networks sometimes admitted was “anti-American.”
-
Worry about Human
Rights: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others
have all expressed strong concerns about abuses in Chavez’s
Venezuela. But just 10 percent of stories included any information
about human rights violations. The term “human rights” was all but
ignored. It’s a concern the network news reporters should include
when they are covering Chavez.
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