Caracas Chronicles is one of the four longest-running blogs covering the collapse of democracy in our country, aimed at a predominantly English-speaking audience. Its author, Francisco Toro, is arguably the most eloquent writer we have on our side. Toro has long maintained that professional journalism simply does not exist in Venezuela, a point I somewhat agree with. He is deeply passionate about defending the importance of sticking to the facts when reporting on matters originating from Chávez’s Venezuela, a stance I fully support.
It goes without saying that Toro, despite being a great writer, is far from infallible. His latest piece, linked to Rory Carroll of The Guardian (yet another example of terrible journalism), does more to undermine the position he so fervently defends and his commitment to factual reporting than to demonstrate that the incident involving the P3 aircraft supposedly entering Venezuelan airspace is merely a fabrication of Chávez’s propaganda machine.
I left the following comment on his blog, for the fame of Gene of Harry’s Place, hoping that he would retract and set a positive precedent for all of us to follow:
… P3 airplane of this type… In other words, a P3 airplane of this type, hence, the image was used for illustrative purposes, and it was not, as this blog post claims, that Chávez said the image of the plane is the original.
Link to Chávez’s words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMoYHgD7RVk
A retraction is in order, FT, soon, you are/are, after all, a professional journalist, right?