The mainstream media is howling over Hugo Chávez's bid to change the constitution for a third term, while coverage of Colombia's Álvaro Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally, to do the same raises few, if any, questions in the media. U.S. news coverage of parallel political events in Colombia and Venezuela offers an opportunity to test the usefulness of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model,” developed in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.

The Andean Information Network (AIN) analyzes Simon Romero's recent New York Times article on the complex drug war relationship between Washington and the administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales. According to AIN's analysis, Romero's report contains multiple inaccuracies and misleading information, giving readers a skewed understanding of coca-related issues in Bolivia.

Recent coverage of the pending U.S. trade deal with Colombia made clear that major U.S. media outlets presented only their preferred side of the story rather than providing the public with the range of information necessary for an honest, informed debate on U.S. trade policy. Major media pulled out all the stops to come out in support of this one: NAFTA, human rights, terrorism, paramilitaries, Hugo Chávez... Wait, what?

Independent reporting, free from the government’s fiery rhetoric, has been noticeably absent. A careful and sober account of Venezuelan media that focuses on the most basic and uncontroversial facts of what constitutes the Venezuelan media today has been non-existent in mainstream U.S. media (and even in many independent sources as well). Such reporting could present a more accurate picture of the actual situation of freedom of expression in Venezuela.

There are two salient trends in the US reporting about Bolivia: (1) the personalization of Morales as the representative of Bolivia’s transformation backed by social movements and (2) the misrepresentation of both the new Bolivian Constitution and the so-called Autonomy Statutes of the business and regionalist elite.

Apparently, Miami is a parallel universe where reality can be distorted with impunity. It's hard to know where to begin a critique of this June 17 Miami Herald editorial by Eduardo Gamarra. His editorial describes tense protests, but his manipulative account is unforgivable and grossly distorts the background leading up to the protests.

In a civil conflict such as the one in Colombia, propaganda is an important weapon. It is difficult for journalists and analysts to independently investigate the reality on the ground and so statistics and information are obtained from a variety of sources in order to draw conclusions. However, the mainstream media in the United States is often over-reliant on two sources: Colombian and US government officials. Not surprisingly then, it is the perspectives of the Colombian and US governments that inevitably dominate most news reports. By comparing conflict trends and human rights statistics with media coverage of Colombia’s violence, it is possible to understand why and how the public’s perception of the conflict has been distorted.

In a near-unanimous voice vote tonight, the Senate passed a “resolution of disapproval” that would nullify the Federal Communications Commission’s latest attempt to dismantle longstanding media ownership limits.

Later this month, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) will publicly determine the “authenticity” of laptops recovered from a rebel encampment in Ecuador after a March 1 raid on the camp by the Colombian military. Based on previous press coverage of the incursion and the documents, we are concerned that the media take extreme care in interpreting the Interpol findings.

While mainstream media have covered candidates’ pursuit of the Latino vote, the mostly white pundits on MSNBC, CNN, and other networks now articulate a narrative that sows racial division by explaining Obama’s lower Latino vote percentages as evidence of racial division and tensions between African Americans and Latinos.

None of the news organizations commented on, nor appear to have inquired with Clinton or her staff, whether she is aware that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won presidential elections in 1998, 2000, and 2006, survived a recall referendum in 2004, and accepted defeat in a constitutional reform referendum last year. Neither do the news organizations appear to have asked for Clinton’s definition of “dictator” or “rogue regime,” or by what definition Chávez or Venezuela would qualify.

It reflects recurring distortions in mainstream journalistic writing on Bolivia. There are a few outright falsehoods, like the “indigenous militias,” but beyond inaccuracies, U.S. reporting on Bolivia is misrepresented by the language and narrative form, shaped more by external perceptions and strategies than by Bolivian reality.

Reflecting on Cuba’s Fidel Castro stepping down from power in February, U.S. newspapers relied on several worn-out themes and stereotypes that disparage Castro, gloss over U.S. aggression against Cuba, and idealize capitalism.

U.S. reporting on the referendum largely simplified the CAFTA question as a matter of geopolitical rivalry between Venezuela and the United States, and it failed to seriously examine whether CAFTA would benefit Costa Rica.

Mainstream news outlets have yet to fully investigate the Uribe administration’s role in the failed December operation.

U.S. news coverage of Guatemala’s November 2007 presidential election mostly misrepresented the country’s political dynamics and misled the public about the nature of the violence that led to the deaths of more than 50 candidates, activists, and their family members during the campaign season.

News coverage of the election of Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as president of Argentina on October 28, 2007 was as lop-sided as the election itself.

Margaret Thatcher once admonished her critics with the assertion that, like it or not, “there is no alternative” to free markets and free trade. The great economists, she argued, had long taught us that such trade regimes are superior to all others. The New York Times has taken the same position in its coverage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

The controversy over the exclusion of the Latino experience from Ken Burns’s recent documentary The War raised important questions not only about how he and PBS view Latinos, but more generally about Latino and Latin American images in the media.

As gauged by old-fashioned- journalistic content analysis—which simply counts the number of words, headline size, and other plainly observable elements of newspaper copy—the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of Prop. 187 was balanced. But such analysis is limited. According to recent research in cognitive science, common metaphor appears to be the key element of language that people use to make sense of their social world. In brief, what you say (or read) is what you get.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has long been demonized by the Western media as a “leftist firebrand” (the U.K. Independent), “militaristic strongman” (Financial Times), and as “Venezuela’s demagogue” (The Washington Post).