BBC correspondent claims âwe donât do propagandaâ on Venezuela. Letâs look at its coverage.

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond
From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas
The greatest trick the BBC ever pulled was to convince the world its bias doesnât exist. Whether BBC journalists are aware of it or not, personal and institutional bias informs what information they present, and how they present it. And as Noam Chomsky told the BBCâs Andrew Marr in 1996, if BBC reporters presented information any other way, they simply wouldnât be BBC reporters.
On 19 February, BBC correspondent Orla Guerin added to the neutrality myth, writing about the broadcasterâs coverage of Venezuela:
We donât do propaganda. We call it they [sic] way we see it, even if that does not suit the pre-conceived idea/ideals that some have.
BBC journalists may very well âcall it the way they see itâ. But that far from suggests that they âdonât do propagandaâ. The BBCâs decades-long agitation for intervention in Venezuela lays this assertion bare.
Propaganda: a war of attrition
Narratives like these donât form overnight:
a) the US promotes democracy abroad;
b) Venezuela is a brutal dictatorship.
Though both are demonstrably false, the media drip-feeds these narratives into public discourse until they seem like common sense. Like a war of attrition, this propaganda eats away at rational discourse until critical analysis appears an act of madness or evil.
The Canary spoke to David Edwards, one of two editors of award-winning media monitoring site Media Lens, about how the BBC reports on Western intervention. Edwards said:
The BBC is structurally, institutionally completely incapable of reporting honestly the crimes of the West and its allies.
It has never told even a fraction of the truth about US-UK crimes in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and so on. It has never reported these crimes or placed them in an accurate historical context, showing how the West has consistently attacked independent nationalists abroad in its determination to ensure that local tyrants armed and supported by âusâ suppress local people to the benefit of Western corporate interests. This framework of understanding is considered completely beyond the pale in âpoliteâ BBC discourse; it is not even thinkable for them.
He continued:
Because the US, UK and its allies are the worldâs leading human rights violators, and because the BBC cannot even conceive of this possibility, BBC output must be considered propaganda on every issue relating to international affairs.
And true to form, the BBC has consistently made current intervention in Venezuela seem necessary and humanitarian.
The BBC versus Hugo ChĂĄvez
According to a study by the University of the West of England, out of 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008, âonly 3 of those articles mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the [former Venezuelan president Hugo] ChĂĄvez administrationâ. These positive policies notably included âdemocratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiativesâŠ, poverty reductions programmesâ, and a highly successful literacy initiative.
One BBC article in 1999, strikingly, compared Chavez to Adolf Hitler.
When the US initiated a coup against Chavez in 2002, the BBC reported it as âVenezuelaâs new dawnâ. The word âcoupâ was almost totally absent from its analysis, and the BBCâs representation of ordinary Venezuelans centred around the views of opposition forces. The coup was therefore presented as a popular and organic uprising, and not an extension of decades of US imperialism in the region.
The BBC versus NicolĂĄs Maduro
Today, the US and its âcoalition of the willingâ justify intervention in Venezuela by claiming that the Venezuelan government is:
a) responsible for a humanitarian crisis;
b) authoritarian and undemocratic;
c) a national security threat to the US and its allies.
Though this is perhaps the most transparent imperialist project in recent years, the BBC promotes intervention by uncritically accepting the pro-intervention narrative and omitting evidence that challenges it. In doing so, as in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, it is functioning as a mouthpiece for Western imperialism.
a) Humanitarian crisis
The BBC rarely questions whether US âaidâ to Venezuela is âhumanitarianâ. When it does, it presents Washingtonâs clear imperialist intentions as an âallegationâ or âaccusationâ by Maduro.
It omits the vital context that Venezuela has already accepted humanitarian aid from the UN and the Red Cross.
In an article entitled Venezuela aid: Genuine help or Trojan horse?, the BBC omitted that Elliott Abrams, the man in charge of US operations in Venezuela, has a record of using âhumanitarian aidâ as a âTrojan horseâ in Nicaragua. The article, moreover, seemed to argue that US âaidâ was âgenuine helpâ.
The BBC regularly reports on Venezuelaâs economic crisis without commenting on the vital context of crippling US economic sanctions.
b) Authoritarian and undemocratic
The BBC aired Hugo Chavez: Revolution in Ruins on 16 January â one week before the coup began. In the words of independent news site Venezuela Analysis, the show âtried to present the problems facing Venezuela as the outcome of the dictatorial characters of ChĂĄvez and Maduroâ.
The BBC ran another pro-regime change piece on 23 January, in which one of the BBCâs sources likened Venezuela to a prison. And, as The Canary reported, the BBC failed to mention that the same source was â100% behind [Venezuelan opposition leader] Juan GuaidĂłâ.
On 4 February, the BBC claimed Maduro âdefiantly rejected the EUâs Sunday deadline to call snap electionsâ and âdefies calls to step downâ. It did not mention, however, that the EU and US have no authority or legitimacy to dictate Venezuelaâs domestic politics.
On 5 February, the BBCâs Hardtalk programme hosted a former Venezuelan Supreme Court justice, who urged âmilitary officers to restore democracyâ in Venezuela. It was later found that the BBCâs translation inflated the defectorâs words.
On 12 February, BBC reporter Guerin wrote that Maduro âstill occupies the Presidential Palaceâ, as if the elected head of state was somewhere he shouldnât be.
The BBC also appears to cover anti-government protests with far greater enthusiasm than pro-government protests. It reported, for instance: âThousands of demonstrators call for President NicolĂĄs Maduro to go â but others turn out to support himâ.
When Guerin was asked why the BBC was only covering anti-government protests on 3 February, she responded that it was too âdifficultâ to do both. This was simply untrue.
c) Threat to national security
The narrative that Venezuela poses a threat to US national security is probably the most incredulous of them all. Nonetheless, the BBC had a crack at it.
On 22 January, it ran a story called US âwill respond to Venezuelan threatsâ. Venezuela, however, has made no threats against the US. And, as The Canary reported, âthe BBC only details threats made by the US to possible⊠aggression from Venezuelaâ.
Three out of three
The BBC is, therefore, running stories promoting all three US propaganda points justifying intervention in Venezuela. Guerinâs claim that it doesnât do âpropagandaâ on Venezuela would be laughable if the BBC was not complicit in forming public support for what could soon become the next Vietnam or Iraq.
Featured images via Government of the United States and Flrn