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Guerrillas Armed With Beer, Part II: This Time It’s Audio

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting followed up their recent blog post on the Washington Post’s far-reaching editorial comments on Colombia-Venezuela tensions with a Counterspin interview that delved deeper into the issue. Host Steve Rendall asked Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Program at the Center for International Policy, about major media coverage of the tensions, the latest round of which began with Colombia’s presentation at the Organization of American States of “evidence” of guerrillas in Venezuelan territory, including a photo, since made famous by the Washington Post editorial board, supposedly of an ELN leader drinking Venezuelan beer on a Venezuelan beach. (As FAIR noted, this “evidence” was sufficient enough for the Washington Post editorial board to issue an editorial denouncing Venezuela, yet again, and its President, Hugo Chávez, for being part of a “terrorist alliance.” The Post did not comment on whether brewer Empresas Polar is also part of the alliance – they are the ones, after all, who seem to have supplied the ELN leader with beer.)

Carlsen commented:

I’ve been appalled by the press on this issue, but not surprised because whenever it comes to Venezuela there’s this bias and this lack of journalistic rigor, that it characterizes the articles about the region, and about Colombia and Venezuela tensions in particular. In this case, first of all, there’s no effort really made to determine whether or not these ‘proofs’ were really ‘proofs’, whether they were true or not. And moreover it’s very difficult to know exactly what these ‘proofs’ were ‘proving’. And there was no real analysis of, what does it mean? If there’s supposedly an ELN leader drinking a beer on a Venezuelan beach: what does that really prove? And yet instead of analyzing these things, or taking it at least in a neutral stance, the Washington Post editorial ended up jumping directly to the conclusion that Chavez is head of a terrorist alliance. There’s no substantiation to that, and it’s an extremely inflammatory statement. So what we’re seeing is a progression from unsubstantiated and unanalyzed so-called ‘evidence’ going straight towards these blanket statements that are accepted not only as consensus opinion but also as news itself.

And on the other hand we do not see the mainstream press reporting on peace efforts. Immediately after this happened, the FARC, which is the main guerrilla group in Colombia, came out with a statement calling for a political solution. The UNASUR and other countries in the region stated that they were going to be working toward a peace accord, which President Uribe rejected, within the region that would finally put an end to the conflict in Colombia. Yet we do not receive the kind of information that there are initiatives toward peace talks in Colombia, again, because there’s this line. coming out of Washington and echoed by the mainstream press, that is promoting a military solution to the conflict.

Listen to the interview here. Read Carlsen’s analysis, “Uribe’s Parting Shot”, here.