hi welcome back to Fair TV I'm Peter Hart a March 26th oped in the New York Times from Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez caught many people's attention not for what he wrote but for the correction that appeared at the bottom of the piece which explained that he had incorrectly claimed that those killed in clashes over the past few weeks in Venezuela were all protesters the column now says accurately that people on all sides have died you would definitely get the impression from us media coverage that all the violence is coming from the government though which might explain why the times initially printed the error much more reliable information can be found about the death toll from the center for economic and policy research and Venezuela analysis where the deaths for the first month have been carefully detailed both find that each side has been directly responsible for about N9 deaths opposition barricades have caused many of the deaths through accidents delayed ambulances and the like now it's important to understand that Lopez is a leader of the opposition faction that favors force and Street confrontations to remove the government so it's not surprising that he would try to conceal the fact that his side has been responsible for many of the deaths the times should have caught the falsehood before it printed it there are people who spend a lot of time on TV pundits providing expert analysis here's one you see a lot of National Review editor Rich Lowry on the CBS Sunday Morning chat show and here he is on March 23rd on NBC's Meet the Press slamming Vladimir Putin over Crimea you know we all thought we were living in a post-cold war world where everyone accepted basic International Norms he's living in a world where he can take territory through lies and Force of Arms now when you hear words like lies and Force of Arms it's hard not to think of the Iraq War and back then Lowry was a famous purveyor of lies in support of the war he appeared on venues like cbs's Face the Nation to claim that Iraq was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda and before that Lowry advocated violence after the 911 Terror attacks America roused to a righteous anger has always been a Force for good states that have been supporting if not Osama Bin Laden people like him need to feel pain if we flatten part of Damascus or Tran or whatever it takes that is part of the solution the thing about Lowry wasn't just that he was wrong a few weeks after the Iraq invasion Lowry actually wrote a column demanding accountability from the naysayers of course they weren't wrong about Iraq Rich Lowry was but there's very little accountability in corporate media for people like him and Fin finally is everything that Iran does suspicious it sure seems that way Eric Schmidt of the New York Times wrote a whole piece about a tip he got from the US government about what appeared to be an odd replica of a US ship that was being built in Iran he noted the US view that Iran might try to blow it up for propaganda value but he reached for his own conclusions too writing that the ship was being built presumably for some mysteriously bellicose purposes he even raised the idea that Iran could be trying to provoke the United States he wasn't the only one USA Today went with the story to relying on the analysis of a US politician and two right-wing think tanks but then Reuters offered a very different take the headline might tell you all you need to know so with the Iranian sides version out the story might seem not so bellicose after all but Times Reporter Schmidt went on NPR to say he didn't buy the Iranian explanation and he made a pretty interesting admission is this a kind of counter propaganda for the US to leak it to the press and to kind of out them absolutely and and that's again one of the reasons why the Navy wanted to get this news out and the Pentagon wanted to get this news out was in the event the Iranians did have the intent to use this for propaganda purposes the US is basically saying aha we've already caught you at your game uh no matter what you say from here on out it's not going to be a very effective propaganda to so the Pentagon wanted to get the story out and the New York Times was ready to help I'm Peter Hart thanks for tuning in to Fair TV