A MINUTE OF FACT-CHECKING DEBUNKS L.A. TIMES ARTICLE ON DIRECTV’S VENEZUELA EXIT

The Los Angeles Times, in an article titled “The U.S. wants AT&T to stand up to Venezuela’s government censors” claims that the cable channel Globovisión, transmitted by DirecTV (100% AT&T-owned), is a mouthpiece for the Maudro government. The entire article is full of phrases and statements that imply that the main information outlets in Venezuela block all points of view put forward by the Venezuelan opposition. In the article, journalist Joshua Goodman legitimizes the State Department’s pressure on AT&T to “pull the plug on Maduro’s propaganda machine” and cease transmission of Globovisión.   

Nothing could be farther from the truth. All Joshua Goodman would have had to do is to google Globovisión and open their web page to see that the channel in no way reflects the line coming from the Maduro government. Alternatively, he could have accessed Globovisión programs like that of Vladimir Villegas titled “Vladimir A La Una” to have seen that he interviews people of different political stripes and that he hardly expresses pro-government positions. Indeed he himself belongs to the Venezuelan opposition.

Goodman writes “The U.S. officials and opposition operators are concerned that DirecTV is being used to broadcast state TV programming by Maduro to attack his opponents, who have no way to respond.” Doesn’t Goodman have the journalistic responsibility to check the credibility of this statement and comment on its lack of veracity? Or alternatively, shouldn’t he quote a pro-government source to present the other side of the story? Nothing of the sort.  Indeed, it would be easy to refute the statement that Maduro’s opponents “have no way to respond.” All it would take is to go into most bookstores in Venezuela, even the ones in the nation’s major state-run airport outside of Caracas, and by reviewing the newspapers on the stand, he could see that the opposite is almost the case, it’s the government that has “no way to respond.” 

Furthermore, Goodman fails to critically examine a statement by Carlos Vecchio, Juan Guaidó’s envoy in Washington, who calls Globovisión “treasonous.” The question that comes to anyone’s mind is why is Globovisión being called “treasonous”? The Venezuelan opposition considers Globovisión and its owner Raúl Gorrín who purchased the channel in 2013 as “traitors.” Why? Goodman says that prior to 2013 Globovisión was “critical of the government” but this is an understatement. Globovisión was not so much “critical” of the government, it was rabidly critical. Fox’s coverage of a Bernie Sanders’ government would be mild in comparison to Globovisión’s reporting on the government of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez.

These deficiencies in Goodman’s article point to the need for the Los Angeles Times, and the entire U.S. corporate media for that matter, to do fact checking in its reporting on Venezuela. The Los Angeles Times and much of the U.S. media are highly skeptical of the statements made by Donald Trump. Why should their treatment of Juan Guaidó and his supporters, who are virtual surrogates of the Trump administration, be any different?