NYT leading propaganda campaign against Maduro as election looms
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Venezuela's presidential elections are scheduled for July 28. President Nicolas Maduro is seeking a third term after he was re-elected in 2018.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores greet supporters during an event marking the anniversary of a 1958 coup on January 23, 2024 (AP)
According to FAIR, a US-based progressive media watchdog group, at least in the last two decades, Western corporate media has peddled regime-change propaganda to support Washington's agendas.
With Venezuela's elections looming, the New York Times seems to be leading this effort, exposing in recent articles its biases, distortions, and downright falsehoods.
To start, the NYT ran 3 pieces within a week, all referring to Maduro as "authoritarian" in the title rather than by name.
According to Julie Turkewitz of the NYT, Venezuelans are voting in a presidential election for the first time in almost a decade, with an opposition candidate having a small chance of winning, reinforcing the notion that Maduro's 2018 victory was illegitimate. Other publications like Reuters and BBC as well as France24 do not back up their assertions as they describe the elections as "rigged," neither free nor fair," or "widely considered fraudulent."
Turkewitz claimed that opposition figures were prevented from running without disclosing that most prominent Leopoldo Lopez had previously attempted to violently overturn the government and another, Henrique Capriles, was barred from holding public office due to administrative misconduct.
Venezuelan opposition and Washington collaborations
The Venezuelan opposition, in collaboration with Washington, was committed to election boycotts and insurrections, as per FAIR. Trump reportedly threatened to penalize opposition leader Henri Falcón if he did not boycott the election. Juan Guaidó, who was appointed a few months later to lead a self-proclaimed, US-backed "interim government," had full presidential candidacy rights in 2018.
Still, FAIR contends that the NYT and other publications report that candidate Edmundo González is leading in the polls, and accuse the Venezuelan government of not accepting the results.
The NYT also mentioned the "enormous" turnout in the opposition's October primaries, implying that it predicted a strong anti-Maduro vote in the general election. Realistically, the main data was disputed and the organizing committee never disclosed detailed results. The opposition claimed a turnout of 2.3 million persons in a country with a 20 million adult population. The ruling Socialist Party, by contrast, has 4 million registered members.
Finally, there is concern over the scale of opposition gatherings. Crowd measuring is not just an imprecise science, but it also removes context by disregarding the ongoing, large pro-government mobilizations.
Along with prematurely applauding an opposition victory, some arguments challenge a potential win for Maduro. The main focus is on US favorite María Corina Machado, who is supposed to be "barred by the government"—or by Maduro himself—from running, a dishonest phrase typical in many publications.
Machado is portrayed as a defender of democracy and has long been a corporate media idol despite her coup attempts involvement, endorsing a foreign invasion, and self-proclaimed support from the US.
Her disqualification is used to justify oil sanctions and accuse Maduro of failing to hold the "free and fair elections" agreed upon with the US-backed opposition in Barbados in October 2023. This is untrue on two accounts.
Western publications frequently spread fake news claiming the Barbados Agreement allows her to run for president, even though the article dictates a candidate can run if they meet the qualifications set by Venezuelan law and the constitution to run for office. Machado was already serving a political ban, and nothing in the deal indicated it would be revoked.
After she submitted her appeal, the Supreme Court upheld her removal, citing fraudulent conduct and the jeopardization of Venezuelan assets abroad.
Fabrications and poor journalism
Aside from distorting the truth about one of Venezuela's most anti-democratic leaders, the NYT wrote that "Ahead of the July 28 vote, Mr. Maduro, 61, has in his grip the legislature, the military, the police, the justice system, the national election council, the country’s budget and much of the media, not to mention violent paramilitary gangs called collectives."
The Socialist Party won the legislature in the 2020 elections, and it has the power to choose Supreme Court judges and the Electoral Council. FAIR points to the double standard as Western media would rarely say that a US president "has Congress in his grip."
The Venezuelan president commands the armed forces and chooses the interior minister, who oversees the police, constitutionally mandated presidential powers that shock Turkewitz for some odd reason.
In what FAIR calls "the pinnacle of poor journalism," the NYT on May 11 published that Maduro "hardly indicated that he is ready to leave office promising a large crowd he would win the election “by hook or by crook."
In what the watchdog calls "an absolute fabrication", during the rally mentioned by the NYT, Maduro is referring to overcoming US- and opposition-led coup attempts "por las buenas o por las malas"—the Spanish term the Times translates as "by hook or crook."
In the video uploaded by a Venezuelan journalist, Maduro lists anti-democratic plots dating back to 2002 and vows that the country's "civilian-military" unity will defeat any possible coup attempt "por las buenas o por las malas"—"by any means necessary," as one might say. There's no mention of the forthcoming elections.
The myth of economic misery
NYT and Turkewitz downplayed the sanctions, noting that "Maduro blames sanctions" for the country's economic problems, attributing the belief that sanctions harm the Venezuelan economy to the vilified Maduro, even though US officials have said on several occasions that sanctions are intended to create economic misery.
According to NYT, "the government has been choked" by US sanctions, insinuating that only Venezuelan leaders are harmed by them. Turkewitz failed to explain their economic impact on Venezuelans, who, like the majority of the foreign world, strongly detest them.
Turkewitz's piece simply claimed that a Maduro victory on July 28 would "intensify poverty" in Venezuela. According to FAIR, she either says this because she assumes sanctions will continue, or believes that opponents of the US are doomed to ruin their economies.
In January, Maduro revealed positive economic indicators for Venezuela, stating that the country experienced over 5% economic growth in 2023. Looking ahead, he anticipates an 8% growth in 2024 despite ongoing economic challenges, including triple-digit inflation and significant emigration that were the outcome of years of US-imposed sanctions.
