The Big Question: Is The Independent Guilty of Wielding Excessive Bias in Venezuela?

Why are we asking this now?

Because the Independent has published such comments as the following:

"In 2006 he withdrew the terrestrial licence for Venezuela's second largest TV channel and replaced it with a state network. But then the station had, along with all the other privately-owned channels, backed a United States-inspired coup against him."

"The United States has long seen Chávez as a threat. In the Bush era it backed a botched military coup against him and, at the same time, criticised him for 'undermining democracy'."

-- I see the Independent has its knives sharpened for the United States. Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

How biased is it?

"For all his faults, Chávez is a lot straighter and more honourable than the corrupt and kleptocractic regimes that preceded him."

-- Ok ok. I know I previously said that media bias is in the eye of the beholder, but, to deny the Independent isn't taking a position here is to deny that 2+2 equals 4. WOW.

What about human rights?

"The Venezuelan police have never sunk to the levels of barbarity of places like Brazil and Argentina at their worst, but it is said that those who don't tow the chavista line can be excluded from state jobs or benefits."

-- Is it indeed a known fact Venezuelan police have never sunk to the levels of barbarity of places like Brazil and Argentina at their worst? I believe Federico Black would disagree.

So why do readers keep buying the Independent?

Well, fewer and fewer readers are, and with such outright bias as this, it's no wonder why.

"Have the poor benefited?

Undoubtedly. Chávez has channelled billions of dollars into social programmes in the form of health and literacy programmes aimed at the poorest. There is free dental care, free health, access to education and vocational training, social housing and cheap food subsidised by the state. There are elected neighbourhood community councils, which decide how government money will be spent locally. There are 3,500 local communal banks for micro-financing. The incomes of the poorest have risen by 130 per cent. Social indicators, on child mortality, disease, illiteracy, malnutrition and poverty, show huge improvement.

Things are far from perfect - state control of food prices has led to sporadic shortages. But the net improvements are clear. Official UN figures show that poverty has dropped from 51 per cent to 25 per cent since 2003. Extreme poverty is down from 25 per cent to just 7 per cent. Venezuela is well on the way to reaching its first Millennium Development Goal years ahead of schedule - in stark contrast to those Third World countries relying on the affluent West for aid."

-- Actually, just the other day, Luis Pedro España, Director of the Institute for Economic and Social Research at the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello had this to say about poverty in Venezuela:

"The grand facade, the great deception of this government, is that it says it has a social policy that favors the poorest and that is not true. If it were true, there would have been a much greater reduction in poverty, compared to the economic growth and income boom that we have had. The reason for this is that oil revenues are distributed through market mechanisms and the government has not addressed the distribution of products, services and transfers to the most populous sectors...
...and this is where the government has leveraged its theme of social missions and the government's social policy, an incredible campaign of political propaganda. Furthermore, other factors have intervened such as rising oil revenue, which does not depend on the willingness of the government, and which has maintained a high level for 5 years. The result was an increase in consumption. This is how in all that time Venezuelans repurchased assets that had not touched in 25 years.
... This country has been immersed in an oil boom similar to the 1970s. So poverty reduction has been negligible, especially extreme poverty, extreme poverty has maintained the same figures in absolute terms, about 3 million people."

And the inaccuracies go on...

"So who exactly is against him?

The vested interests who depended on the old corrupt economic model for handling the country's oil economy, which is the fifth largest in the world. Also the professional and middle classes who relied on the working of the old elitist model. Prominent among these are the owners, managers, and commentators workings on the five major private television networks and largest newspapers who have opposed Chávez for a decade. Their airwaves and pages are full of day-to-day issues like muggings (crime is high in Venezuela) and the price of milk. But their real concern is the shift from alignment with the US-dominated globalised economy to the bilateral trade and reciprocal aid agreements which Chávez has called his "oil diplomacy" - bartering oil for arms with Brazil, for doctors and other expertise with Cuba, and for strapped meat and dairy products from Argentina.

They were also alarmed by Chávez's wider proposals as part of a constitutional reform including limiting central bank autonomy, strengthening state expropriation powers and providing for public control over Venezuela's international reserves. It is measures like that which have caused Washington to massively subsidise Venezuela's opposition parties."

-- AHEM. What about the student movement? Diego Scharifker details the student movement's position in English between 2:15 and 3:50 in the video below. The entire interview is worth watching, but if you only have limited time here, I would strongly recommend carving out one minute and 35 seconds from 2:15 - 3:50:

The Independent wraps with this "balanced" look at the Chávez regime:

Is it time to give up faith in the President of Venezuela?

Yes...
* His violations of human rights are becoming more authoritarian as the years pass.
* He is squandering vast amounts of oil wealth on social security programmes that are only a sticking plaster on deep structural woes.
* Constitutional changes allowing him to rule indefinitely are dangerous.

No...
* He has massively improved the lives of his country's poorest people.
* His foreign policy remains an important challenge to the power of the US in the region.
* Venezuelans still support him far more than voters in democracies like the UK or US support their leaders.

The Big Question: How does Paul Vallely sleep at night?

Now, another question to put on top of my previously posed closing question:

If the BBC, the New York Times and the Independent were the last foreign news media on earth covering Latin America, which would we prefer and why?