Op-Ed on Venezuela Slips Past NYT Factcheckers

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Friday, February 20, 2015
by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

Op-Ed on Venezuela Slips Past NYT Factcheckers

by Steve Ellner

A February 15, 2015, op-ed on Venezuela by Enrique Krauze seems to have slipped by the New York Times' factcheckers.

Krauze's thesis (a tired one, but very popular with Venezuelan and Cuban right-wingers in South Florida) is that Venezuela has not only followed "the Cuban model," but has recently outdone Cuba in moving Venezuela further along a socialist path even as Cuba enacts economic reforms. This idea is not merely an oversimplification--as it might appear to the casual observer of Latin American politics--but is largely misleading. To bolster his case, Krauze--a prominent Mexican writer and publisher--includes numerous false statements and errors, which should have been caught by the Times' factcheckers.

Krauze begins by claiming that the Venezuelan government, first under President Hugo Chávez and then his successor Nicolás Maduro, has taken control over the media. Chávez "accumulated control over the organs of government and over much of the information media: radio, television and the press," we are told, and then Maduro "took over the rest of Venezuelan television."

A simple factcheck shows this to be false. The majority of media outlets in Venezuela--including television--continue to be privately owned; further, the private TV audience dwarfs the number of viewers watching state TV. A 2010 study of Venezuelan television found that

as of September 2010, Venezuelan state TV channels had just a 5.4 percent audience share. Of the other 94.6 percent of the audience, 61.4 percent were watching privately owned television channels, and 33.1 percent were watching paid TV.

More:
http://commondreams.org/views/2015/02/20/op-ed-venezuela-slips-past-nyt-factcheckers

Or:
http://fair.org/home/op-ed-on-venezuela-slips-past-nyt-factcheckers/

[Demeter]

1. That's a Charming but Misguided Delusion

"fact-checking at NYT"

The only facts NYT recognize are the ones they get their noses rubbed into, like a dog that hasn't been housebroken.