the people's friend

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Dec 02, 2006

One of the media's prime cheerleaders for world socialism, the BBC has been shaking the pom-poms for Venezuelan Hugo Chavez non-stop. In a current photo spread titled "Life in a Caracas barrio," there are no fewer than four plugs for Chavez inserted in the captions.

[Community leaders] say that for the first time they feel things are looking up. The president, they say, is "working for the people".

No doubt. But more vexing than what the media say is what they don't say. We're given a predictable view of the poverty in Caracas, but every relief effort shown is provided by some socialist agency: no relief administered by nuns, priests, missionary brothers or lay Catholics gets a photo or a mention.

The same blackout technique was used during the South Asia tsunami relief project two years ago. Apart from Christian media the Church's efforts were invisible. I remember seeing a series of oddly-cropped photos of a Sri Lankan school classroom pressed into service as a clothing distribution center -- also displayed on the BBC site -- and then realized they almost certainly was cut so as not to show the crucifix on the classroom wall. Were it suggested that the Church is something other than a source of misery in the poorer parts of the world, viewers might be given the wrong impression.