The announcement from Venezuela’s electoral authority that it would not proceed with a recall referendum has unleashed yet another wave of critical articles and opinion pieces throughout the English-speaking media, labeling the socialist government in Venezuela as “authoritarian” or even a “dictatorship.”
It is a tired tune that people who follow political developments in the South American country have heard consistently throughout the 18-year process known as the Bolivarian Revolution.
Despite the fact that the Venezuelan government’s democratic credentials have been affirmed repeatedly—including by groups that cannot be considered to be partial to the government, such as the Carter Center—private media outlets insist on labeling the Maduro administration “undemocratic.”
Media outlets are fully aware that if they were to be honest in their reporting about Venezuela, the narrative that the country is not a democracy would collapse under the weight of its own insincerity.
Thus private outlets have consistently anddeliberately omitted critical information about recent developments in Venezuela.
