When news first broke of the breathtaking military raid that ended in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro (featured bottom right), all the mainstream news outlets went straight into news mode. They reported just the facts as they were coming in. It took a couple of hours for them to revert to type, and ABC decided it was a good time to pit the president against his secretary of state, reports NewsBusters.
“President Trump is adamant that the U.S. is in charge of Venezuela. That statement contradicted hours earlier by his own Secretary of State, who suggested the U.S. won't govern Venezuela,” reported ABC's Rachel Scott.
Nick Fondacaro of Media Research Center says that, for the most part, the networks cast the operation in a negative light.
“A little bit of a mixed bag, but basically, what a lot of them are saying are just this negative doom and gloom, suggesting like, ‘oh, this is illegal.’ Some of them are even saying that this can maybe get to World War III,” says Fondacaro.
He says that it is more what they left out than what they said. The fact that the Biden administration put a bounty on Maduro's head did not make the cut. This is evident in a press briefing by former President Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre near the beginning of last year.
“We also increased the reward amount to $25 million for Nicolas Maduro and his so-called Minister of Interior as part of the Department of State's Narcotics Rewards Program,” stated Jean-Pierre.
Fondacaro says that was only one of many omissions.
“They're going around just sort of ignoring all the legal facts of this, that we had a warrant. There is a precedent for this with the Noriega arrest. We have legal precedent. We have the warrant, and they're still sort of claiming that this is not legal,” states Fondacaro.
