To fulfill True North’s mandate to keep you informed and entertained I study news sources from the political left, centre, and right, and back again, doing my best to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s a lot of work but it’s very interesting. Sitting before my computer I make daily trips to countries and cities on all continents and subcontinents around our busy globe. And you can be sure that the expression of vested interest can be so thick that sometimes it’s really tough slugging to find the nuggets of truth. I find that people will lie even when the truth will do. It bothers me a lot. I suppose that’s because I was brainwashed in Sunday School not to bear false witness against my neighbour.
So it grieves me when some of the sources I trust and respect break faith by publishing or acting in ways that are below and away from the best traditions of journalism — a profession that flows rich in my blood.
I’ve found that The New York Times (one of my favourite newspapers) and The Washington Post really have burrs under their saddles when it comes to Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela.
They buck along bending the truth about poor old Hugo in what can be said is nothing short of bad taste, if not worse.
That’s why you’ll find below a deconstruction of a Washington Post editorial about the paper’s bête noir, the ever–modest Mr. Chavez. The Washington Post and The New York Times carry on about Chavez with the kind of heat that only can be found in feuds within dysfunctional families. But I’ll leave The Washington Post here to its deconstruction.
One of my sources on Venezuela is a web site called Venezuelanalysis.com. To the best of my knowledge it is not a government agency but it’s clear that it is resolutely pro-Chavez and his so-called Bolivarian Revolution.
In mid-August I clicked on Venezuelanalysis.com and Lo! and Behold! There squatted a web site claiming to be The New York Times. The articles were written centre right instead of centre left and were mostly travel fluff. A few clicks got you information on travel and hotels.
Oh well, I said a vagary of the web. I clicked on and off several times but no Venezuelanalysis.com that I had come to know, if not love. The next day the same thing happened. I then got the number of the Venezuelan Embassy in Ottawa, thinking that I was not going to accept any kind of censorship. However, before I phoned I tried the site again. This time I looked more carefully. Down in the lower left corner I saw “Venezuelanalysis.com Lapsed”. If I wanted more information I was invited to click “here”. I did so and there was a box asking for my name and email address with a space for my comments. In good humour I wrote that I was interested in an explanation. And sent it away. I never received a response but the next time I hit Venezuelanalysis.com, my compulsion was satisfied and remains so to this day.
Conclusion? Some outfit was (is) using the authority of The New York Times to sniff out how many (and who) are reading Venezuelanalysis.com. I don’t think it was the newspaper because of the quality of the writing. It was the kind of writing that would be produced by a secret service agent who feels that he or she can write like a journalist but doesn’t know enough to understand that he or she can’t.
Anyway, that’s one of the stories that flowers in the world of True North. There are at least six billion other stories out there and True North will do our best to keep ‘em coming.
Looking forward to seeing you on No Gas Friday.
Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective
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