The Independent shakes off yesterday's mistake, posts Reed Lindsay article on the victory

Posted by Alex Satanovsky - August 16, 2004 at 8:14 pm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story .jsp?story=552287

In a marathon poll marked by high voter turnout, Venezuelans have ratified the mandate of President Hugo Chavez in a recall referendum that represents a monumental boost to his government and ablow to his domestic and foreign opponents.

Scattered protests erupted around Caracas yesterday as opposition leaders refused to accept results indicating Chavez won with 58 per cent of the vote, even after international observers endorsed the outcome.

A 62-year-old woman died and four others were wounded after a group of apparently pro-Chavez motorcyclists fired into a small opposition protest in a Caracas plaza, said Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno. Opposition congressman Ernesto Alvarenga was among those hurt, Briceno said.

Ending hours of confusion, former American president Jimmy Carter, who helped monitor the referendum, endorsed the returns showing that the left-wing president had won the vote. "Our findings coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council [CNE]," Mr Carter told a news conference, and urged Venezuelans to accept the result.

Reed, a Narco News graduate as far as I know, knows his journalism well. No ommissions of inconvenient facts, yet no jumping to conclusions. The opposition protests the vote, but it is in conflict with the opinion of the international observers. The people who fired on the anti-Chavez rally are only apparently pro-Chavez activists.

Quite disciplined yet open journalism.

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About Alex Satanovsky

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I am finishing my undergraduate studies in Political Science and Sociology at the University of Michigan. I've been fascinated with Latin American movements ever since the fascist coup in Venezuela (2002), and along with my long standing view of the repugnant commercial media, I've shaped my studies accordingly over the years.

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reporting vastly improved at Independent

Submitted August 16, 2004 - 9:03 pm by Benjamin Melançon

Criticized on the NarcoSphere, the Independent puts up an article by a person who is not just a Narco News journalism school graduate, but a J-School professor this year. It's a good time to be an authentic journalist.

Reed Lindsay's article also states:

The Organisation of American States, which also monitored the vote, said there were no indications of fraud. The organisation's secretary general, Cesar Gaviria, added that the opposition would need to present more concrete accusations before the CNE results could be questioned.

I will complain about Reed ending with the opposition's claims of 59% for their side by their own exit polls without giving any of the many reasons to doubt this (pre-election polls, dearth of polsters at poor voting places).

But these paragraphs are golden:

The rejection of the recall is a setback for Venezuela's opposition, which had been campaigning for Mr Chavez's recall for more than a year after failing to force him from office in an April 2002 coup.
It is also a blow for the US government, which had endorsed the coup and helped finance opposition groups that campaigned for the recall through the National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
Mr Chavez had portrayed the referendum as a battle between the Venezuelan people and what he sees as "imperialist" intentions of the United States, promising to hit a "home run against the gringos". In his victory speech yesterday, Mr Chavez announced that "the ball has landed in the dead centre of the White House ... A gift for [President George] Bush".
Mr Chavez's five-year presidency has been marked by an ambitious effort to remake Venezuela's corrupt political system and reduce inequalities between rich and poor.

Thanks so much for the heads up, Alex. Thank you for the article, Reed. Did I say already it's a good time to be an authentic journalist?

Hold it right there.

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 5:26 am by Jeff Simpson

The people who fired on the anti-Chavez rally are only apparently pro-Chavez activists.
Quite disciplined yet open journalism.

Excuse me, but this claim is neither disciplined nor open. This statement, which authentic journalist and J-School Professor Reed Lindsay has signed his name to, 'apparently' standing on its own but in fact unsupported by a single shred of evidence of any type, is a great example of exactly the type of irresponsible, inflammatory reporting that I have come to expect from the commercial media. At the very best it is uncritical parroting of someone else's work (unless it was the other way around). At worst, it is opposition propaganda.

Is there something I am missing here? Is there a single documented fact aside from the say-so of Chief Briceno which makes the gunmen's support for Chavez 'apparent'? Was there something aside from the circumstances of the incident - gunmen on motorcycles firing into an unarmed crowd (kind of like this earlier incident in a pro-Chavez neighbohood) - which made their political leanings 'apparent'? Were they identified (despite being unnamed) and somehow linked to pro-Chavez activities? Was it the color of their skin?

Let's get real. Couldn't they just as easily have been, for instance, opposition provocateurs? And if someone had claimed that they were, without offering any evidence to back it up, wouldn't that have been pretty inflammatory? Would any of you autenticos have reported such a claim without offering some supporting facts, or at least mentioning that there were none?

I am not laboring under some fantasy that Chavez's supporters, wafting along in the moral stratospere miles above their opposition counterparts, are somehow immune to the urge to atrocity that so frequently animates our species, and especially our testosterone-burdened sex. Of course Chavistas get angry. Of course Chavistas can drive motorcycles and shoot guns. But saying it doesn't make it so. Unsubstantiated claims like this are bricks in the wall that I thought we were trying to tear down.

gunmen not apparently anything

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 11:04 am by Benjamin Melançon

You're right Jeff, I shouldn't have given Reed a pass on the 'apparently Chavista' shooters. I certainly don't consider it plagiarism or opposition propaganda, though. I think it's fair journalism, citing the only source seemingly available for this information, the Caracas fire chief. But the incident could have at least been written about without irresponsibly tagging the identity of the shooters, and at best with more context.

Here's the paragraph in question:

A 62-year-old woman died and four others were wounded after a group of apparently pro-Chavez motorcyclists fired into a small opposition protest in a Caracas plaza, said Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno. Opposition congressman Ernesto Alvarenga was among those hurt, Briceno said.

The evidence that the shooters were Chavistas is a tad too obvious. Wrote Alexandra Olson Monday morning for the AP (the first article Jeff Simpson cited):

Chavez condemned the violence, but said he wouldn't be surprised if the shooters, who waved posters urging the "no" vote, were sent by opposition leaders to provoke chaos.

I doubt Chavez supporters would be advertising their affiliation while shooting people, unless they were targeting someone big.

Is this opposition legislator Ernesto Alvarenga anywhere near that level? I think I'd have to see his wounds to believe he was hit. A lot of things about the incident confuse me.

Since I can't find any articles that refer to BOTH the shooting characterized as "One person died and 10 others were wounded today when gunmen opened fire [from motorbikes] on voters just outside Caracas [...] in an impoverished area 17km east of the capital" in the Miami Herald, Monday the 16th and elsewhere called an attack on anti-Chavez protesters after the vote.

The Olson article also has:

About 200 people kept protesting after the shooting, hurling stones at passing vehicles displaying "no" signs.

So was this two incidents in separate places, or were the anti-Chavez people protesting in a mostly pro-Chavez, "impoverished" neighborhood, or were the people fired on not opposition at all?

I hope Reed Lindsay will come in here with his view on his own article and the writing process, and that other Narco News people in Venezuela can help clear up this single (or double?) incident of shooting.

Alleged discipline is not apparent

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 11:35 am by Richard Pilkington

I have to agree with Jeff.

The subjective claim, "a group of apparently pro-Chavez motorcyclists fired into a small opposition protest in a Caracas plaza," lacks objectivity. Worse yet, I assume, the "claim" is not the writers, nor can we determine whose assertion makes it apparent. In other words, it's poppycock. Fluff, we're all too familiar with.

What's more important, we know how to read it.

Some clarification....

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 11:58 am by Ron Smith

Clear as mud:

There were several shootings, one took place on August 15th, voting day, in Petare, assailants unknown and as yet uncaptured. Petare is a heavily pro-Chávez neighborhood, and one person was killed, at least 10 wounded.

There were a couple of "accidental" shootings by Policia Militar, one soldier wounded, one civilian killed.

Finally, there was the shooting at Altamira plaza, escualido central, yesterday the 16th. Three men arrived on motorcycles and started shooting. These three men have been identified and Chávez claims he will throw the book at them, regardless of who they are. He did mention the coincidence of Globovision being at the right place at the right time, as during previous incidents at Altamira. This implied an agent provocateur situation but there are no facts yet. The assailants have been detained, according to Lázaro Forero, director of the Metropolitan Police, and the DISIP is investigating. There's the hard facts, folks, from the pages of Últimas Noticias, p23, 17 de Agosto 2004. Other than that, the situation is still a bit hazy. It is a bit early to announce the shooters' political affiliation...

In response...

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 1:53 pm by Reed Lindsay

I appreciate the criticism of the following paragraph that appeared in the article published in The Independent under my name.

I always appreciate feedback and criticism on what I write – I receive so disappointingly little – whether or not I agree with it.

First, I’d like to clarify that not a word of the paragraph in question is mine. I imagine the editors pulled it from a wire report. In fact, I filed this story before the shooting even happened. From my limited experience, it seems that newspapers in the United States and Canada have the healthy custom of adding at the end of the story “With files from Reuters, AP” or something of the sort, so the reader knows that at least some of what was written was taken directly from wire reports and was not written by the reporter. Unfortunately, newspapers in Great Britain and Australia don’t seem to practice this custom. Also troubling is that editors often inject their own words (note in the article in The Independent “left-wing president,” a term I try to avoid as I feel it’s loaded, and contestable, preferring instead to describe Chavez’s policies and letting the reader determine if he’s left-wing or not), and even whole sentences and paragraphs, without checking first with me to see if what they’ve written is accurate. I usually try to offer to look the story over before it’s published, but there are only a few newspapers that take me up on this offer. And of course, being a freelancer, it is especially difficult, as I often have contact with editors only through email, and unfortunately more often than not I have little control over the editing process thousands of miles from the newsroom.

Second, I agree with the criticism of “apparently pro-Chavez motorcyclists.” I would not have written this for the reasons you all have mentioned. I did see a photo last night on internet of the gunmen, and one of them was dressed in a red shirt and red beret. But as Jeff Simpson pointed out, he could just as easily have been an agent-provocateur from the opposition. Journalists in Venezuela should be especially on guard at jumping to these sorts of conclusions, as the opposition is implicated in several violent political attacks that were initially blamed on Chavez supporters. (I wrote an article about this in The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, titled “Media Fan Anti-Chavez Paranoia, published on October 24, 2003). I would probably have written something like this…

Three gunmen shot opposition protesters, killing a 62-year-old woman and wounding four others. One of the gunmen was dressed in the red shirt and red beret typical of Chavez supporters, but so far their identity and the motives behind the shooting are not known.

To The Independent's credit, I think that despite the edits the gist of what I had written was maintained.

Finally, I’d like to add a word of caution. I think Narconews and the Narcosphere are valuable watchdogs on the media, apart from being a great forum on a range of issues, and I appreciate the comments you all have made on my article. Keep it up, but also keep in mind that not everything written under a reporter’s name was necessarily written by that reporter. In the future, if anyone wants to comment on an article I’ve written, in addition to voicing your opinions and analysis on the Narcosphere, please feel free to email me at reedlindsay@yahoo.com.

Reed

Thanks for the clarification

Submitted August 17, 2004 - 2:27 pm by Jeff Simpson

I am certainly happy to hear that you were not responsible for the offending paragraph, you being one of a handfull of journos whose reporting I regularly and actively seek.

This is one of the reasons why I could never be a journalism pro. If someone ever published something so irresponsible under my name, I'd have to kidnap their grandmother. The situation could not end well.

Independent: "A Victory for Democracy"

Submitted August 19, 2004 - 8:36 pm by Al Giordano

Found via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Friday, August 20, 2004
Chavez win is a victory for democracy
By THE INDEPENDENT
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
To his opponents, Hugo Chavez, the maverick Venezuelan president, is a reckless demagogue who would, if not stopped, turn his country into a bigger and more dangerous replica of Castro's Cuba. To many of the millions who turned out to support his leadership in a referendum on Sunday, he is a courageous champion of the poorest and most downtrodden.
Whichever version is closest to the truth, Chavez's win must be welcomed as a victory for democracy. Even his harshest critics should be reassured that Chavez submitted to the vote demanded by his foes, even after the relentless campaign they mounted to topple him, including a coup in 2002 and a national strike last year. Indeed it was the president who introduced the constitutional mechanism that could have seen him removed mid-term.
Predictably, the opposition has cried foul, alleging a "gigantic fraud." But two groups of observers -- one led by the respected former U.S. president Jimmy Carter; the other by the Organization of American States -- have now judged the vote free and fair, and the result consistent with their own assessments.
Venezuela matters because of the size of its economy -- the fourth-biggest in Latin America -- and increasingly, with oil prices at record levels, because it is the world's fourth-biggest exporter of oil.
Whether Venezuela can now embark on a period of stability and begin to address its immense economic problems will depend to a large extent on how the opposition reacts. The convincing margin of Chavez's victory should be a warning to them to wait until the next democratic opportunity to try to unseat him: the elections in 2006.
It must also be hoped that the oil-hungry United States refrains from interfering.
For the president's part, he must now attempt to bridge the polarizing divisions that are crippling development. Appearing triumphant at the presidential palace in Caracas, he promised to deliver the next phase of the "revolution": the social reforms that have enraged Venezuela's most powerful economic interests.
But he also spoke of opening a dialogue with his opponents. It must be hoped that he meant what he said.

I guess they now listen to Reed Lindsay more carefully than to... what is her name? Hannah Baldock?

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Reporter's Notebook: Alex Satanovsky