Reporting and Credibility: RCTV

May 28, 2007

Reporting and Credibility: RCTV

There's another round of coverage of the expiry of RCTV's broadcast license in Venezuela.

It's entirely understandable that there would be concern about this, but news agencies are only damaging their own credibility by not reporting the relevant facts.

RCTV's role in the coup is consistently downplayed, or reduced to an accusation. The AP says: "Mr. Chavez, who says he is steering Venezuela toward socialism, accuses RCTV of supporting a short-lived 2002 coup..."

They make it sound like the coup was no big deal, and that RCTV simply expressed enthusiasm for it. Somehow, the idea that a military coup against an elected government is no big deal has started to circulate. RCTV went far beyond that: it was intimately involved in orchestrating the coup, and the evidence is readily available to be evaluated.

It's at best lazy and more likely intentionally misleading reporting, and one would think that the AP's clients like the Globe and Mail would ask for better.