Food is so scarce in Venezuela that last week a group of starving people broke into a zoo and killed a horse for food. Burdened by government regulations, Venezuela’s economic crisis and its food shortage are forcing many people to leave their country.
However, the networks haven’t done much reporting on the subject. The July 31, NBC Nightly News was an exception.
NBC reporter Kerry Sanders focused on the ongoing crisis in Venezuela and even acknowledged that many people blame current and former socialist presidents for its “crippled economy.”
Nightly News anchor Kate Snow introduced the segment about the thousands of Venezuelans fleeing to the United States and Colombia in search of food. Video showed crowds of hungry people traveling to Colombia on foot.
“The opposition seeking to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office say Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez are to blame,” said Sanders.
The report showed that many Venezuelans lack the most basic living essentials. One Venezuelan woman who immigrated to the United States two years ago told the reporter that she left “in search of the bare necessities,” including food, soap, rice, and toothpaste.
He said, “The Venezuelan government only allows its citizens to bring $300 cash and and spend only $700 dollars on their credit cards.”
On July 29, The Washington Post reported that Venezuela’s annual inflation is “more than 700 percent” and argued many economists consider the country’s economy to be “the worst-performing in the world.” But that wasn’t always the case.
The liberal news media rarely connect Venezuela’s economic struggles to its socialist government. On May 24, 2016, a Washington Post editorial about the country’s economic woes failed to mention socialism even once.
From May 1-23, the broadcast networks did not mention Venezuela except during reports on the Zika virus, and the recent zoo incident also went unreported.
