Buying Venezuela's Press With U.S. Tax Dollars

Source: Huffington Post

Buying Venezuela's Press With U.S. Tax Dollars
Jeremy Bigwood Investigative reporter
Posted: July 19, 2010 01:28 PM

The U.S. State Department is secretly funneling millions of dollars to Latin American journalists, according to documents obtained in June under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The 20 documents released to this author--including grant proposals, awards, and quarterly reports--show that between 2007 and 2009, the State Department's little-known Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor channeled at least $4 million to journalists in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela through the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), a Washington-based grant maker that has worked in Latin America since 1962. Thus far, only documents pertaining to Venezuela have been released. They reveal that the PADF, collaborating with Venezuelan NGOs associated with the country's political opposition, has been supplied with at least $700,000 to give out journalism grants and sponsor journalism education programs.

Until now, the State Department has hidden its role in funding the Venezuelan news media, one of the opposition's most powerful weapons against President Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian movement. The PADF, serving as an intermediary, effectively removed the government's fingerprints from the money. Yet, as noted in a State Department document titled "Bureau/Program Specific Requirements," the State Department's own policies require that "all publications" funded by the department "acknowledge the support." But the provision was simply waived for the PADF. "For the purposes of this award," the requirements document adds, " . . . the recipient is not required to publicly acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of State."

Before 2007, the largest funder of U.S. "democracy promotion" activities in Venezuela was not the State Department but the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), together with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). But in 2005, these organizations' underhanded funding was exposed by Venezuelan American attorney Eva Golinger in a series of articles, books, and lectures (disclosure: This author obtained many of the documents). After the USAID and NED covers were blown wide open--forcing USAID's main intermediary, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a Maryland-based contractor, to close its office in Caracas--the U.S. government apparently sought new funding channels, one of which the PADF appears to have provided.

Although the $700,000 allocated to the PADF, which is noted in the State Department's requirements document, may not seem like a lot of money, the funds have been strategically used to buy off the best of Venezuela's news media and recruit young journalists. This has been achieved by collaborating with opposition NGOs, many of which have a strong media focus. The requirements document is the only document that names any of these organizations--which was probably an oversight on the State Department's part, since the recipients' names and a lot of other information are excised in the rest of the documents. The requirements document names Espacio Publico and Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, two leading organizations linked to the Venezuelan opposition, as recipients of "subgrants."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-bigwood/buying-venezuelas-press-w_b_650178.html

~snip~
The revelations of U.S. funding of Venezuelan journalism comes on the heels of a report released in May by the center-right European think tank FRIDE, which found that since 2002 the United States has spent an estimated $3 million to $6 million every year "on small projects with political parties and NGOs" in Venezuela, with funds distributed through an alphabet soup of shifting and intertwined channels. (The report was removed from FRIDE's website soon after it was publicized.) The PADF journalism program thus appears to be part of a much larger project of propping up the Venezuelan opposition.

Well, not really. Just a funny kinda Monday thing.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TGaFUPJleS4/TCSVCqAtWlI/AAAAAAAATz8/t56_euJrDgQ/s1600/gay+hitler.jpg

Buying the Press
By Eva Golinger
Documents reveal multimillion-dollar funding to journalists and media in Venezuela

US State Department documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) evidence more than $4 million USD in funding to journalists and private media in Venezuela during the last three years. This funding is part of the more than $40 million USD international agencies are investing annually in anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela in an attempt to provoke regime change.

The funding has been channeled directly by the State Department through three US agencies: Panamerican Development Foundation (PADF), Freedom House, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

In a blatant attempt to hide their activities, the State Department has censored the names of organizations and journalists receiving these multimillion-dollar funds. However, one document dated July 2008 mistakenly left unveiled the names of the principal Venezuelan groups receiving the funds: Espacio Publico (Public Space) and Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad (Institute for Press and Society “IPYS”).

Espacio Publico and IPYS are the entities charged with coordinating the distribution of the millions in State Department funds to private media outlets and Venezuelan journalists working to promote US agenda.

More:
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/07/documents-reveal-multimillion-dollar.html

Feeling too stupid to live about posting it again.

Here's the original post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x38715

is only helpful.

The more exposure, the better.

I'm flattered.

:blush: