Jonathan Rugman
Jonathan Rugman is foreign affairs correspondent for Channel 4 News. The Channel 4 website says, "Jonathan's beat includes foreign policy, terrorism and international development."[1]
Previously he was C4's Washington correspondent, covering the US elections and Hurricane Katrina.[2]
Demonizing Venezuela
On 27 March 2006, Jonathan Rugman presented "Hugo to go?" on Channel 4 News, wherein he relentlessly smeared Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, in a piece described by John Pilger as "one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism I have ever seen".[3] Media Lens summarized the piece:
- Rugman's film [...] showed footage of Chávez with Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein and Qadaffi. Rugman's voiceover, strident and dramatic, hammered home the point:
- "He supplies 15 per cent of America's oil, yet America's enemies are his friends. Hugo Chávez, in danger of joining a rogue's gallery of dictators and despots - Washington's latest Latin nightmare".
- The film repeatedly depicted Chávez as a dictatorial menace, referring to his "personality cult" and to factories run as "Soviet-style collectives". Rugman asked:
- "Is Chávez on the way to becoming a dictator?"
- [. . .] Rugman interviewed Maria Corina Machado, describing her as a "civil rights activist". In fact she is a leader of Sumate, an extreme right organisation that was deeply involved in a 2002 coup that temporarily ousted Chávez[...] In a March 23 report Rugman again described Machado as a "civil rights activist", citing her as the source for his claim that "government critics" are "fearing another Zimbabwe here". [4]
References
- ↑ People: Jonathan Rugman, Channel 4 site, accessed 25 Jan 2010
- ↑ Biography: Jonathan Rugman, Channel 4 website, accessed 25 Jan 2010
- ↑ John Pilger, Email to Channel 4 News, copied to Media Lens, March 27, 2006, reproduced at Cartoon Time - Channel 4 Smears Chavez, Media Lens, 5 April 2006, accessed 25 Jan 2010.
- ↑ Cartoon Time - Channel 4 Smears Chavez, Media Lens, 5 April 2006, accessed 25 Jan 2010.
