The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists.

Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named “free trade” economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as “Leftists” or “radicals”; eliminating the possibility that they were simply concerned citizens participating in the democratic process. This is the familiar tactic of the media to marginalize ordinary people whose interests don’t correspond to those of the ruling elite.

“Latin America’s radical leftists took to the streets on Friday,” Jack Chang breathlessly reported for Knight Ridder, but all the other news outlets invoked the same disparaging language.

The main target at the event was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader who is invariably slandered by the media with the monikers “leftist firebrand”, “radical president” (Financial Times) or fiery, populist president (NY Times). At some point in every article, Chavez is lumped together with Fidel Castro or Che Guevara in a conspicuous attempt to dismiss him as an anti-American troublemaker. In fact, Chavez was among the first countries to come to America’s aid following Hurricane Katrina, offering doctors, medicine and oil to the devastated region. No major media source publicly credited him for his charitable contributions.

Chavez, of course, is guilty of redistributing some of Venezuela’s prodigious oil wealth to the poor and needy of his country. This has made him an imminent threat to the entrenched oligarchy and their teammates in the media.

“We are creating a great political body in the south, and not only geographically,” Chavez opined. “This is the great task of our region, to create a consensus of ‘the south’ that will bring better lives to all our people.”

Chavez’s innocuous comments were vilified in most of the reports as inciting anti-Americanism or, worse still, “subverting democracy in his country”. (Knight Ridder) In fact, it is the rising tide of democracy in South America that has Washington so concerned. Chavez has captured the imagination of the common man and is pointing to a way out of the neoliberal policies that have kept Washington’s boot placed firmly on neck of southern hemisphere economies for 20 years.

“We’ve come to bury FTAA,” Chavez roared to the capacity crowd. “I even brought a shovel”.

The Venezuelan president’s remarks were enthusiastically applauded by the thousands in the crowd who chanted back, “Fascist Bush, You are the terrorist”.