Despite news of inflation, crime, and looming threat of another guarimba insurrection there is some good news reported by Broadcast the Truth:
Venezuelan Vice President of Planning and Knowledge, Ricardo Menendez, said Wednesday the decline in the unemployment rate to 6.7% in July as in Venezuela have created over 4.5 million new jobs.
Menendez said at a press conference that 95% of Venezuelans eat three times a day, because the country's economy "has sufficient force" to support these figures.
"In the last two years there have been unprecedented attacks on the economy. There are only small perturbations from the point of view of desrrollo, we as an economic model and has to do with each of the attacks has been Venezuela (...) We are under a scheme of economic war in the country and yet we have seen indicators of food consumption per day per capita show that over 95% of our population eating three or more times a day. "
He stated that "regardless of the economic war that our country has suffered, there is an economy with an impressive force with a huge force. It's like a body that is infested with a virus and has sufficient strength to withstand the onslaught of an economic war".
You will not hear this in the International media at all, because it will not fit the media narrative of Venezuela is a failing economy because of centralized socialism. The real question is if they keep pushing the narrative of a failing economy, why 95% of Venezuelans are able to eat three times a day? It would explain why there are both long lines in Venezuelan supermarkets for both the working class and the middle-classes? The latter is obvious due to economic warfare but the former makes since because more than ever, they got more money to buy basic goods.
Showing posts with label media narratives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media narratives. Show all posts
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Does the Washington Post follow up on reports on international stories?
On September 3rd, 2014, The Washington Post posted an report on the Sidor trade dispute in Ciudad Guyana. It follows a basic narrative on Venezuela: Economic problems are rooted in top-down socialist economics. Also include statements on corruption and inflation. Problem was that by the time this article was published, the dispute was already resolved.
-------
A once-proud industrial city, now a monument to Venezuela’s economic woes
By Nick Miroff September 3 at 10:16 PM
Long before Hugo Chávez launched his socialist revolution, government planners came here to Venezuela’s eastern frontier, where the mighty Orinoco and Caroni rivers converge, and envisioned an industrial workers’ paradise.
President Rómulo Betancourt, a key partner in John F. Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress,” founded the city in 1961, inviting his countrymen to turn Ciudad Guayana into a tropical Pittsburgh.
More than a city, “it felt like you were building a country,” said Alfredo Rivas, who arrived as a young engineer and went on to become president of the huge steelworks here.
A half-century later and 15 years after Chávez came to power, Ciudad Guayana’s factories are crippled, starved for investment and roiled by labor disputes.
Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-once-proud-industrial-city-now-a-monument-to-venezuelas-economic-woes/2014/09/03/4b577663-8f18-4841-b958-eee3b8830ad9_story.html
----------------
As I mentioned, this dispute was already resolved, as Venezuela Analysis can report.
Venezuelan Steel Plant Sidor Renews Operation
By SASCHA BERCOVITCH
Caracas, August 18th 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Following the announcement of a collective workers’ contract signed at the end of last week, the Sidor steel plant in Ciudad Guyana will reopen for normal operation, several officials confirmed this afternoon.
“I opened the plant, and we did a tour to enact a complete overhaul and maintenance plan,” Minister of Industry José David Cabello wrote earlier on Twitter. “My congratulations to the Sidor workers who have demonstrated their commitment to productivity.”
The development comes after weeks of conflict between workers at the state-owned plant and the Venezuelan government over the terms of the contract.
While workers numerous demonstrations throughout Ciudad Guyana to protest the government’s stance on the negotiations, key figures in the government – including National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – characterized the protests as part of a larger attempt by “mafias” to create chaos within the factory and the region.
Last Thursday, Information Minister Delcy Rodríguez and Sidor Workers’ Trade Union (Sutiss) Secretary José Meléndez announced the agreement of a new collective workers’ contract which included a salary increase and retroactive pay for the time spent in negotiations. Since the last contract expired in 2010, workers had complained of a reduced wage value due to inflation.
Other Sutiss members, however, rejected the contract on grounds that negotiations excluded key representatives and lacked collective approval through a workers’ assembly.
Regarding these tensions, Cabello noted that “the guarimba [a term also used to characterize opposition protests earlier in the year] failed here like it failed in the rest of the country. Sidor is not even going to stop. Sidor should be a spearhead in the industry, and for the benefit of all Venezuelans.”
Read more here: http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10851
-----------
But before the dispute was resolved, this had to happen:
---------
14 Arrested and Two Injured in Confrontations between Sidor Workers and Venezuelan National Guard
By SASCHA BERCOVITCH
Caracas, August 12th 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Clashes between protesting workers at the state-owned steel plant Sidor and the Venezuelan National Guard on Monday in the southeastern city of Guyana ended with at least 14 arrests and two injuries, according to multiple sources.
The protest, focusing on continued delays in the negotiation of a collective workers’ contract with the state entity which runs the factory, began at 7 a.m. yesterday when workers gathered in the plant and decided to march to Guyana Avenue, the city’s main access road.
Before they could arrive, local media reported, the National Guard intercepted the demonstration with pellets and tear gas, inciting the conflict which led to the arrests and injuries.
According to a press release from the leftist Socialist Tide (Marea Socialista) organization, the National Guard had also stationed six tanks within the factory, in the area where company buses normally arrive to drop off workers. On Monday Sidor did not send out buses, which workers involved in the protests considered was an effort to avoid further unrest, though many workers found other means of transportation to arrive and participate.
Tensions between Sidor workers and the national government have escalated in recent weeks, particularly after both National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro criticized the protests, which have on occasion blocked roads in the city, as beholden to union “mafias” and part of a larger attempt to destabilize the factory and region.
There has also been a dispute about who is responsible for falling productivity at the plant. Workers blame company management for “inefficiency” and “bureaucracy”, while the government accuses union “mafias” of being responsible.
Read more at: http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10839
So now, the plant is finally back in running. The real question is why did the Washington Post posted this story anyway and not followed up before actually posting it? I'll give you one theory, if they did last-minute research on the situation and made a update story on the dispute, it will break the narrative on Venezuela on being a country full of economic woe.
For a person who wants to push and enforce a narrative there is one rule in writing a media narrative: Never write anything that contradicts that narrative.
-------
A once-proud industrial city, now a monument to Venezuela’s economic woes
By Nick Miroff September 3 at 10:16 PM
Long before Hugo Chávez launched his socialist revolution, government planners came here to Venezuela’s eastern frontier, where the mighty Orinoco and Caroni rivers converge, and envisioned an industrial workers’ paradise.
President Rómulo Betancourt, a key partner in John F. Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress,” founded the city in 1961, inviting his countrymen to turn Ciudad Guayana into a tropical Pittsburgh.
More than a city, “it felt like you were building a country,” said Alfredo Rivas, who arrived as a young engineer and went on to become president of the huge steelworks here.
A half-century later and 15 years after Chávez came to power, Ciudad Guayana’s factories are crippled, starved for investment and roiled by labor disputes.
Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-once-proud-industrial-city-now-a-monument-to-venezuelas-economic-woes/2014/09/03/4b577663-8f18-4841-b958-eee3b8830ad9_story.html
----------------
As I mentioned, this dispute was already resolved, as Venezuela Analysis can report.
Venezuelan Steel Plant Sidor Renews Operation
By SASCHA BERCOVITCH
Caracas, August 18th 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Following the announcement of a collective workers’ contract signed at the end of last week, the Sidor steel plant in Ciudad Guyana will reopen for normal operation, several officials confirmed this afternoon.
“I opened the plant, and we did a tour to enact a complete overhaul and maintenance plan,” Minister of Industry José David Cabello wrote earlier on Twitter. “My congratulations to the Sidor workers who have demonstrated their commitment to productivity.”
The development comes after weeks of conflict between workers at the state-owned plant and the Venezuelan government over the terms of the contract.
While workers numerous demonstrations throughout Ciudad Guyana to protest the government’s stance on the negotiations, key figures in the government – including National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – characterized the protests as part of a larger attempt by “mafias” to create chaos within the factory and the region.
Last Thursday, Information Minister Delcy Rodríguez and Sidor Workers’ Trade Union (Sutiss) Secretary José Meléndez announced the agreement of a new collective workers’ contract which included a salary increase and retroactive pay for the time spent in negotiations. Since the last contract expired in 2010, workers had complained of a reduced wage value due to inflation.
Other Sutiss members, however, rejected the contract on grounds that negotiations excluded key representatives and lacked collective approval through a workers’ assembly.
Regarding these tensions, Cabello noted that “the guarimba [a term also used to characterize opposition protests earlier in the year] failed here like it failed in the rest of the country. Sidor is not even going to stop. Sidor should be a spearhead in the industry, and for the benefit of all Venezuelans.”
Read more here: http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10851
-----------
But before the dispute was resolved, this had to happen:
---------
14 Arrested and Two Injured in Confrontations between Sidor Workers and Venezuelan National Guard
By SASCHA BERCOVITCH
Caracas, August 12th 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Clashes between protesting workers at the state-owned steel plant Sidor and the Venezuelan National Guard on Monday in the southeastern city of Guyana ended with at least 14 arrests and two injuries, according to multiple sources.
The protest, focusing on continued delays in the negotiation of a collective workers’ contract with the state entity which runs the factory, began at 7 a.m. yesterday when workers gathered in the plant and decided to march to Guyana Avenue, the city’s main access road.
Before they could arrive, local media reported, the National Guard intercepted the demonstration with pellets and tear gas, inciting the conflict which led to the arrests and injuries.
According to a press release from the leftist Socialist Tide (Marea Socialista) organization, the National Guard had also stationed six tanks within the factory, in the area where company buses normally arrive to drop off workers. On Monday Sidor did not send out buses, which workers involved in the protests considered was an effort to avoid further unrest, though many workers found other means of transportation to arrive and participate.
Tensions between Sidor workers and the national government have escalated in recent weeks, particularly after both National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro criticized the protests, which have on occasion blocked roads in the city, as beholden to union “mafias” and part of a larger attempt to destabilize the factory and region.
There has also been a dispute about who is responsible for falling productivity at the plant. Workers blame company management for “inefficiency” and “bureaucracy”, while the government accuses union “mafias” of being responsible.
Read more at: http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10839
So now, the plant is finally back in running. The real question is why did the Washington Post posted this story anyway and not followed up before actually posting it? I'll give you one theory, if they did last-minute research on the situation and made a update story on the dispute, it will break the narrative on Venezuela on being a country full of economic woe.
For a person who wants to push and enforce a narrative there is one rule in writing a media narrative: Never write anything that contradicts that narrative.
Monday, April 28, 2014
The Story of Venezuela’s Protests May Be Different From What You Are Told
Originally published by Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Mark Weisbrot easily takes down the Western narrative of the Guarimba Insurrection that has been pushed down for the past two months. While he disagrees with Venezuelan Government seeking an arrest warrant for far-rightist Leopoldo López and the automatic removal of María Corina Machado from the National Assembly for accepting a role as a alternative representative to Panama at the OAS, it's clear that what the far-right movement in Venezuela wants is the removal of President Maduro by force via ungovernablity.
In reacting to the protests in Venezuela, the biggest Western media outlets have drafted a charmingly simple narrative of the situation there. According to this story, peaceful protesters have risen up against a government because of shortages, high inflation, and crime. They have taken to the streets and been met with brutal repression from a government that also controls the media.
It doesn’t take much digging to take down this narrative. First, while there have been some peaceful opposition marches, the daily protests are anything but peaceful. In fact, about half of the daily death toll from Venezuela that we see in the media – now at 41 -- are actually civilians and security forces apparently killed by protesters. A much smaller fraction are protesters alleged to have been killed by security forces. As for the media, state TV in Venezuela has only about 10 percent of the TV audience; the New York Times recently had to run a correction for falsely reporting that opposition voices are not regularly heard on Venezuelan TV. They are on TV, even calling for the overthrow of the government – which has been the announced goal of the protest leaders from the beginning. These are not like the protests last year in Brazil, or the student protests from 2011-13 in Chile, which were organized around specific demands.
Of course the increased shortages and rising inflation over the past year have had a political impact on Venezuela, but it is striking that the people who are most hurt by shortages are decidedly not joining the protests. Instead, the protests are joined and led by the upper classes, who are least affected.
In fact, the protests really got going largely as a result of a split within the Venezuelan opposition. Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chávez and then Maduro in the last two presidential elections, was considered too conciliatory by the more extreme right, led by Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado. They decided that the time was ripe to topple the government through street protests. Both were involved in the 2002 military coup against then President Chávez; María Corina Machado even signed the decree of the coup government that abolished the elected National Assembly (AN), the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.
Source: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/the-story-of-venezuelas-protests-may-be-different-from-what-you-are-tol
Now in regards to the narrative in Venezuela, it really shows that despite overwhelming evidence of the truth behind the facts they completely ignore what happened. Because if they did, they will shatter their fantasy world of humble students fighting against an oppressive government. This includes ignoring the socio-economic class of the protesters, which are upper class and upper-middle class. But why they're pushing this myth over and over again?
Because the news media in America, and in some sense in the Western world are another form of entertainment. In addition, most Americans in general do not care about what is going on in Eastern Europe,Africa or South America, South East Asia unless it's politics, violence, war, disaster, or disorder. The reliance of narratives reveals that the Western Media is too cheap to really find the truth behind what is going behind the scenes. It's merely a form of entertainment these days, especially in television news.
In addition, regarding the share of Venezuelan media viewership why VTV has a 10% share? Why the private media is dominant? It has to be something about the telenovelas isn't it? Because even Chavistas were reluctant to have RCTV to be shutdown without a renewal because of the telenovelas.
In reacting to the protests in Venezuela, the biggest Western media outlets have drafted a charmingly simple narrative of the situation there. According to this story, peaceful protesters have risen up against a government because of shortages, high inflation, and crime. They have taken to the streets and been met with brutal repression from a government that also controls the media.
It doesn’t take much digging to take down this narrative. First, while there have been some peaceful opposition marches, the daily protests are anything but peaceful. In fact, about half of the daily death toll from Venezuela that we see in the media – now at 41 -- are actually civilians and security forces apparently killed by protesters. A much smaller fraction are protesters alleged to have been killed by security forces. As for the media, state TV in Venezuela has only about 10 percent of the TV audience; the New York Times recently had to run a correction for falsely reporting that opposition voices are not regularly heard on Venezuelan TV. They are on TV, even calling for the overthrow of the government – which has been the announced goal of the protest leaders from the beginning. These are not like the protests last year in Brazil, or the student protests from 2011-13 in Chile, which were organized around specific demands.
Of course the increased shortages and rising inflation over the past year have had a political impact on Venezuela, but it is striking that the people who are most hurt by shortages are decidedly not joining the protests. Instead, the protests are joined and led by the upper classes, who are least affected.
In fact, the protests really got going largely as a result of a split within the Venezuelan opposition. Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chávez and then Maduro in the last two presidential elections, was considered too conciliatory by the more extreme right, led by Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado. They decided that the time was ripe to topple the government through street protests. Both were involved in the 2002 military coup against then President Chávez; María Corina Machado even signed the decree of the coup government that abolished the elected National Assembly (AN), the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.
Source: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/the-story-of-venezuelas-protests-may-be-different-from-what-you-are-tol
Now in regards to the narrative in Venezuela, it really shows that despite overwhelming evidence of the truth behind the facts they completely ignore what happened. Because if they did, they will shatter their fantasy world of humble students fighting against an oppressive government. This includes ignoring the socio-economic class of the protesters, which are upper class and upper-middle class. But why they're pushing this myth over and over again?
Because the news media in America, and in some sense in the Western world are another form of entertainment. In addition, most Americans in general do not care about what is going on in Eastern Europe,Africa or South America, South East Asia unless it's politics, violence, war, disaster, or disorder. The reliance of narratives reveals that the Western Media is too cheap to really find the truth behind what is going behind the scenes. It's merely a form of entertainment these days, especially in television news.
In addition, regarding the share of Venezuelan media viewership why VTV has a 10% share? Why the private media is dominant? It has to be something about the telenovelas isn't it? Because even Chavistas were reluctant to have RCTV to be shutdown without a renewal because of the telenovelas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)