Jonathan Rugman

Jonathan Rugman is foreign affairs correspondent for Channel 4 News. The Channel 4 website says, "Jonathan's beat includes foreign policy, terrorism and international development."

Previously he was C4's Washington correspondent, covering the US elections and Hurricane Katrina.

Demonizing Venezuela

On 27 March 2006, Jonathan Rugman presented "Hugo to go?" on Channel 4 News, wherein he relentlessly smeared Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, in a piece described by John Pilger as "one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism I have ever seen". Media Lens summarized the piece:

Rugman's film [...] showed footage of Chávez with Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein and Qadaffi. Rugman's voiceover, strident and dramatic, hammered home the point:

"He supplies 15 per cent of America's oil, yet America's enemies are his friends. Hugo Chávez, in danger of joining a rogue's gallery of dictators and despots - Washington's latest Latin nightmare".

The film repeatedly depicted Chávez as a dictatorial menace, referring to his "personality cult" and to factories run as "Soviet-style collectives". Rugman asked:

"Is Chávez on the way to becoming a dictator?"

[. . .] Rugman interviewed Maria Corina Machado, describing her as a "civil rights activist". In fact she is a leader of Sumate, an extreme right organisation that was deeply involved in a 2002 coup that temporarily ousted Chávez[...] In a March 23 report Rugman again described Machado as a "civil rights activist", citing her as the source for his claim that "government critics" are "fearing another Zimbabwe here".