"Much controversy surrounds the recent proposal to reform 69 articles of Venezuela's national constitution. Both national and international media have focused their attention on the reform proposal and the opposition protests against it. But, as usual, mainstream media have failed to provide the context and analysis necessary to actually understand the meaning and purpose of the reform, instead focusing mostly on some of the smaller and less significant parts, such as the elimination of presidential term limits.
The central focus of Venezuela's constitutional reform and how it fits into the larger picture of the political process being carried out in the country has been entirely absent from mainstream accounts. By leaving out the larger context in which this reform lies and how it plays an essential part of the political program of the Chavez government, the major media have created the image that the central purpose of the reform is to concentrate power in the hands of the presidency. Once again, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez appears as a power-hungry autocrat, a tin-pot dictator sitting on massive oil wealth, this time reforming the constitution as a means to install himself as president for life."