Caracas Chronicles

 You could waste a lot of valuable time picking through the smouldering piles of intellectual rubble that get passed off as "news, views and analysis" on any given day over at Venezuelanalysis.com. Fortunately the news cycle generally serves up rather meatier fare than the thin, thin gruel those guys dish out, so I usually supress the urge to take down the artless propaganda that makes up the bulk of their oeuvre.

But the flesh is weak, so just this once I’ll make an exception. Consider, if you will, this craptacular write-up on the FARC-ETA case – translated from an Aporrea original by something hilariously called "Axis of Logic" – where a certain Gonzalo Sánchez notes that all the major Spanish media outlets, including "Público, El País, ABC, El Mundo, La Razón, Cadena Ser, COPE, Libertad Digital as well as the TV Channels", gave prominent play to the story, and cites that as proof of…"an impressive and well coordinated smear campaign" against the Venezuelan government!

Sánchez (and the luminaries who translate and edit him over there) never seem to consider the possibility that some other, hidden factor might explain the bizarre phenomenon whereby a lot of different media outlets carry the same story at the same time even in the absence of a smear campaign. No alternative account for why that might have happened occurs to them, no conspiracy-free explanation for it is even intermittently entertained. The whole conceptual category of "news" simply eludes these people. 

By their reasoning, November 5th, 2008 witnessed the most fantastically well orchestrated media conspiracy in the history of humankind. Think about it, just about every single news outlet in the whole world led with the same story that day!

Coincidence?!  I think not!

Seriously, guys, I know the Culture Ministry took away your grant and all that. But c’mon, surely you can do better than this!