A deep aversion to truth-telling

From Venezuela under “Brutal Capitalism” by Alex Tabarrok.  The New York Times once again writing ideologically and therefore not reporting news at all but embroidering narratives.  

Jeffrey Clemens points us to some bonkers editorializing in the NYTimes coverage of the likely stolen election in Venezuela. The piece starts out reasonably enough:

Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was declared the winner of the country’s tumultuous presidential election early Monday, despite enormous momentum from an opposition movement that had been convinced this was the year it would oust Mr. Maduro’s socialist-inspired party.

The vote was riddled with irregularities, and citizens were angrily protesting the government’s actions at voting centers even as the results were announced.

The term “socialist-inspired party” is peculiar. The party in question is the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) and it’s founding principles state, “The party is constituted as a socialist party, and affirms that a socialist society is the only alternative to overcome the capitalist system.” So, I would have gone with ‘Mr. Maduro’s socialist party’. No matter, that’s not the big blunder. Later the piece says:

If the election decision holds and Mr. Maduro remains in power, he will carry Chavismo, the country’s socialist-inspired movement, into its third decade in Venezuela. Founded by former President Hugo Chávez, Mr. Maduro’s mentor, the movement initially promised to lift millions out of poverty.

For a time it did. But in recent years, the socialist model has given way to brutal capitalism, economists say, with a small state-connected minority controlling much of the nation’s wealth.

Venezuela is now governed by “brutal capitalism” under Maduro’s United Socialist Party!??? The NYTimes has lost touch with reality.

Tabarrok proceeds to demonstrate just why the New York Times can no longer be trusted to report what are virtually self-evident facts.

Venezuela is governed by an authoritarian socialist regime which as created an economic and political catastrophe for the nation for all to see.  But don't the New York Times to actually report that.