WHY ISN'T THE LOCAL MEDIA REPORTING ON THE VEMEZUELAN CRISIS?

If ever there was a news story that affected not only Trinidad & Tobago but the entire Caribbean it is the extreme crisis taking place in Venezuela. As of today, the entire country has been without electricity for six long days. The supply of electricity since the crisis began last Thursday has been sporadic ... sometimes you get power but most of the time you don't. Foreign news reports say that up to now some twenty-four people have died of which six were infants.


But this crisis might as well be happening on the moon and not a few miles away, if you read the local newspapers or listen to the local radio and television stations. Oh, the papers do put a story on the crisis in their pages from time to time, but then they devote a lot more time and space to whether or not newly appointed Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith should be wearing a camouflage uniform or whether an Opposition politician was wrong to "fat shame" an admittedly large and overweight woman. It seems that the editors and managers of our local media believe that these type of stories are far more important than our neighbor literally falling apart.


No electricity has meant no water. No electricity has meant no gasoline for cars. No electricity has meant no refrigeration and food spoiling which means that people are going hungry. No electricity has meant no telephones, no cell phones, no internet, nothing. If you have an emergency you cannot call either the police or an ambulance! Think about it! No electricity has meant that the airports are shut down.  You can't leave the country even if you wanted to! No electricity has meant that the hospitals cannot function and that people are going to die. No electricity has meant that ATMs and credit cards can't work and the banks can't function. So, if you had all your cash in the bank six days ago you will be flat broke today. No electricity has meant that hungry people are resorting to looting. There is a complete breakdown of law and order. And no electricity has meant that there is no water!!


I could go on, but you get the point. This is a very serious crisis. And if you thought that we had a refugee crisis before this happened just wait for a little while  ... its going to get worse!!


So? Isn't this a serious news story? But you'd never guess this by reading the local newspapers or listening to the local radio or television stations. Why? I have my suspicions ... all of them as ugly as they ought to be unnecessary. And frankly, they are all related to the media's not so hidden support for the Rowley led Government. You see, any proper reporting of the crisis next door to us will by implication show how absolutely stupid and uncaring was the Government's rather obvious support for the Maburro regime and its so-called "neutrality" which wasn't neutral at all!!


But this story won't go away. And people will continue to die. And the editors and managers of our local media will continue to try and ignore it and pretend that they are politically neutral when they so obviously are not! And that's the real sin here!