Venezuela: The people’s fight for a fair hearing http://www.greenleft.org.au/2010/832/42787

One analysis of Carroll’s reporting on Venezuela, published by the left-wing British magazine Red Pepper in September 2008, carefully dissected his anti-Chavez bias. The BBC has also had its coverage of Venezuela questioned recently. In December 2009, researchers at the University of the West of England published the preliminary findings of a 10-year study. Of 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008, the researchers found that only three mentioned any of the Chavez government’s positive reforms — such as poverty reduction programs that have halved the poverty rate from 46.5% in 1998 to 23% in 2009. 

Instead the BBC’s reporting has been characterised by insinuations that Chavez lacks electoral support, and even compared Chavez to Hitler in one instance. The research also suggested the BBC has fallen short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy. It is within this context of media disinformation that I decided to make my new feature-length documentary, Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela.