Saturday, February 5, 2011

A NOTE ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE BELOW

Thanks to all for reading my work. While I am pleased to be mentioned in the New York Times, I am a bit disappointed with the profile piece about me that was published today, Saturday, February 5, 2011. The article makes me sound like some kind of propaganda queen for the Venezuelan government, which I am not. I was very clear during the interview that I am independent, nobody tells me what to do. I choose my work, I choose my subjects, I write what I wish, and as far as the newspaper, Correo del Orinoco International goes, (for which I am proudly Editor-in-Chief), it is publicly-funded by not "run" by the government. It is a public foundation with funding from the annual public budget approved by parliament. However, in the little more than a year that I have been Editor-in-Chief of the English-language newspaper, not once has anyone ever told me what to write, or not write, about. I have 100% editorial discretion. All my books (there are six of them) have been published by different publishers worldwide, not just in Venezuela and Cuba. The Chavez, Code, my first book, which is being made into a feature film by an independent French film company, has been translated and published in 8 languages - English (original), Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Farsi and Turkish. And my new television show, Detrás de la Noticia (Behind the News) on RT Spanish, which can be viewed worldwide on different cable and satellite servers, is also completely under my own discretion. I choose the topics and say what I wish, no censorship, no orders, just full independence.

So, I am disappointed that the Times article made me sound otherwise and just wanted to include this brief disclaimer about the piece. It's also unfortunate that there is little or no mention of my motivations for the work I do. I am and will always be a fighter for social justice. Venezuela is undergoing a profound transformation process based on principles of social justice, and I defend its path. I am proud and privileged to participate in the construction of this new patria and will forever fight against and denounce any illegitimate attempts to undermine or destroy the will and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.

11 comments:

Yuval Warshai said...

Yo leo y entiendo ambos Ingles y Espanol. Yo tambien conozco el estilo y las ideas de Simon Romero en el New York Times sobre Venezuela y sobre la Revolucion Bolivariana del Presidente Hugo Chavez. El Sr. Romero no es un reporter independiente, pero si tiene opiniones tipicas Norte Americanas que en general son de derecha y llaman a cualquier intento de socialismo simplesmente de dictadura. Yo nunca he oido hablar de Eva Golinger y de su trabajo por la Revolucion Bolivariana antes de leer el articulo de hoy del Sr. Romero en el New York Times, pero estoy contento de oir que existe alguien asi alla aydando en la Revolucion del Presidente Chavez. Yo deseo a la Sra. Golinger mucho succeso y mucha fuerza en el trabajo dificil de cambiar el mundo que viene por adelante. Fuerza! Adelante! No pasaran! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana del Presidente Hugo Chavez!

Unknown said...

I read The “New York Times” article today and I found it very offensive that Romero’s first words “a New Yorker who speaks Spanish with a thick American accent”. What does that have to do with your work! After reading the entire article I assessed that it was written with an anti-Chavez slant. This is the first I’ve heard of your work and thanks to the “New York Times” article and the internet I logged onto your blog and was able to determine for myself your support of freedom in Latin America. My parents immigrated to New York from Dominican Republic, and they lived through the worst tyranny of the dictator Trujillo in all of Latin America in the 20th century. I know about despot, Trujillo, whom the US supported for 30 years, directly from my parent’s life in Dominican Republic. I feel that US foreign policy is counter-freedom. It makes me really angry because my tax dollars pay for these global human rights abuses. Keep up the good work for a free and sovereign Latin America!

Genie said...

I love to read here...good work!

Arby said...

I'm no fan of the corporate-owned media. To try, without any success at all - keeping in mind that dumb people who might be convniced don't count - to make a case that Eva Golinger's funding from the Venezuelan government is suspicious is just laughable when that effort is made by a happy journo writing for a corporate owned paper, and not just 'any' corporate owned paper, in a world in which governments, usually, are corporations.

Darkness is it's own reward. You begin by selling your soul for gain. Flash to the movie (a very funny one by the way) Bedazzled, starring Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. Elizabeth is the Devil. She targets dweeb Elliot Richards (Fraser) for conversion. She has a bit of trouble, but not owing to Richards's intellectual defences. When push comes to shove, Richards's is easy. It's just your soul, she tells him. Do you know what it is?, she asks. He doesn't. Have you seen it?, she asks. He hasn't. It's nothing. You won't even know it's gone. 'Okay' says Richards, after suitable enticements have been offered.

Except that in the real world, selling your soul involves knowingly and willingly becoming evil. You can tell yourself the very same things that the Devil told Elliot, but that's neither here nor there. The point I would make is that while that may be how things begin, that isn't how they end. If we could force the Devil to confirm that, he would have to tell you about his progressive abasement at the hands of God. He was free to go back and forth between heaven and earth for a long time. That ended in 1914. Soon, He will be further abased when God's Son throws him into an abyss for a thousand years. Imagine being progressively cut off from civilization, so that you first have television taken away from you. Then it's all electronics and you are banned from accessing them. Then it's all media in any form and you are also locked up in solitary confinement. You will become, if not stupid, something like it. Eventually, You would become stupid. (It's all relative. I'm sure the Devil's way ahead of puny humans in the smarts department. But in relation to angels of God who have access to God himself, Satan is getting dumber by the moment. And angrier.)

Deeper darkness is the reward of embracing moral darkness for gain. It might not hit you right away, but it will hit you. One day you're okay, if not sufficiently wary, then the next day you're choosing corporatocracy over God. One day you're connected to reality, and a dictator is a dictator, and the next day (or decade or whatever) you're far from it and drifting, such as when Joe Biden, a family man who lost his wife and daughter in a car accident and thought that maybe God had played a trick on him, tells the world that Hosni Mubarak is not a dictator.

It's nice to be noticed by the New York Times, in one way. (Chomsky likes to joke about it. It referred to him as arguably the most important intellectual alive and then went on, in Chomsky's words, to say something along the lines of 'then why is he saying such terrible things'.) But, Seeing how the NYT is the agenda of American imperialism, then finding yourself being wrote about in it should have you squirming a little. When you find that the attention from that daily is not flattering, despite the fact that it's writer is writing about you because of your efforts to promote social justice issues, then you should probably take that as a compliment.

Shane said...

It was great to learn of your work in the New York Times, doubly great to get the chance to be exposed to the Times hypocrisy. I love how Americans see propaganda everywhere else but are blind to their own insidious version. Particularly that of the Times which led, for example, to the war in Iraq.

Michael Caddell said...

I read and comment regularly on Eva's work from remote Kansas and consider the NYT that must be scrutinized carefully, like the Washington Post's ed-op section. Anytime she wants to Skype to Skype on Radio Free Kansas ... I will consider it an honor. Here's the link: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/02/133279945/hezbollah-israel-and-egypt-what-happens-next

Unknown said...

What Eva Golinger should know about NYT is that it is often used to announce the next direction of US policies prior to the policy change. For instance after US gov't decided to get involved militarily in Yugoslav civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina (which they started btw) New York Times wrote an article denouncing Milosevic as "Balkan butcher", the statement that had very little to do with the facts on the ground, or with what this person was actually doing. If someone wants to foresee what would be the next big step by US government he should watch out for notable NYT articles. Fortunately the article about Eva is much less ominous or fatal, and shows much more their inability to subdue Venezuela, and continuous determination to relativize the state of affairs with propaganda spin.

Dave Sailer said...

I wonder about who you are and what you are up to.

I wonder about Mr. Chavez.

I wonder about everyone.

No one is perfectly good. No one is perfectly evil.

I don't even know which side I tip toward.

But it is nice to get a different point of view.

And you, and yours, are valued.

By me, at least.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

DEAR FRIENDS: I AM MORE RADICAL THAN MOST PEOPLE HERE IN THIS BLOG. TO ME MOST PEOPLE IN USA ARE MIND-CONTROLLED BY TV AND US VOTERS WHO ARE MIND-CONTROLLED INTO EMBRACING EVIL, INTO BEING EVIL AND INTO REJECTING GOODNESS AND LOVE, VOTE EVIL PRESIDENTS INTO POWER, AND THE USA IS DOOMED.

SO THE MEDIA IS TO BLAME FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS AMERICANS HAVE, EVEN FOR THE HIGH CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN THE COUNTRY

LOOK HOW THE NEW YORK TIME WROTE B.S. ABOUT DR. GOLINGER WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE. DAMN AND THE WORST THING OF ALL THIS, IS THAT NEW YORKERS STILL BUY THE NEW YORK TIMES, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN USA, WHEN MOST NEW YORKERS HAVE INTERNET AND THEY CAN GET THEIR NEWS FROM COUNTERPUNCH OR WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM INSTEAD OF NY TIMES

WE ARE DOOMED

.

Anonymous said...

Hello Eva,

I like your blog and also the CORREO DEL ORINOCO INTERNATIONAL whose editor you are.

Keep up the good work. Brava !

It is certainly a mixed blessing to be noticed by the New York Times. Their article about you has a slightly arrogant slant. So you are absolutely right with your disclaimer, setting the record straight.

I like the photo, will use it with the translations of (parts of) your articles into German, which I publish now and then on my blog.

Un saludo revolucionario.
Viva la Revolución Bolivariana.

Unknown said...

I cannot say I'm surprised by the incredible bias in the article, but it still makes me feel sick to my stomach when I read it. The sad thing is that these people believe what they write most of the time and have an incredibly non-reflective approach to journalism.