Hello Nick,

Thanks for your comment, which I actually partially sympathize with. The piece does not present the leftist critique of Chavez, which I personally find compelling at times. However, as a news reporter and analayst, I attempt to go beyond what I find personally compelling and report on what seems to me to be the most important topics at hand at the time. With this in mind, it is quite clear that the Bush administration line on Chavez and the Venezuelan news media, as well as the mainstream U.S. news media's positioning on the issue, has been dishearteningly effective in penetrating public opinion on this matter. For instance, I have had dozens upon dozens of conversations about this topic with people from the States who hail from many different backgrounds and the responses have been frigteningly similar to governmental propaganda on the issue. That was what inspired the article and it was not meant as a mere response to the "right-wing" critique, if not to widespread misperceptions about the matter. I tried to stick to the facts, as a result, which is that the Venezuelan media is only as pro-Chavez as the conservative, privately controlled corporations and for-profit businesses that overwhelmingly owns and manages their content (*especially* in the print sector). Ironically, Venezuela has more ideological diversity in its print content than the States does, in many respects (not to mention far more daily newspapers, proportionally speaking).

I do share some of your sentiments though, however, that it would be nice to see some more progressive criticism of Chavez. No democratically elected President, whether populist or not, whether left-leaning or not, should be beyond reproach of criticism and at times, some Chavez supporters would leave us to believe otherwise. However, another, separate article would be a more appropriate venue for such criticism. Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to see you write it. :-)

Now, on the less important matter you wrote about, I would agree that the piece is more of a historical one than perhaps a spot news piece. But that's the beauty of Narco News ... it doesn't limit itself to the blinders of ahistorical journalism and certainly respects the importance of looking back upon matters that are perhaps a year old, or even more. What's more, beyond some news on community media (which was not the focus of the article), there have not been major developments on this issue. But it certainly was important enough to write about, even at this date. That's the way we felt, at least in light of continued misperceptions about the issue.

Best,

--Andrew