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).

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

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.

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.