Venezuelanalysis.com Looks to Maintain 2011 Operations

As Venezuelanalysis.com (VA) continues its end of the year funding drive, the organization is looking for ways to maintain its service of providing daily, contextualized, on-the-ground reporting and analysis about Venezuela, according to James Suggett, a member of the website’s collective editorial board.

va

Mérida, December 21st 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – As Venezuelanalysis.com (VA) continues its end of the year funding drive, the organization is looking for ways to maintain its service of providing daily, contextualized, on-the-ground reporting and analysis about Venezuela, according to James Suggett, a member of the website’s collective editorial board.

VA produces original daily news written by well-informed writers with substantial experience living in Venezuela and working with the Venezuelan people. The website is also well known for providing uniquely in-depth and nuanced analysis about Venezuelan politics, economics, and society.

According to Suggett, VA’s main goal with its current funding drive, which began on December 1st, is to raiseUS$10,000, which will sustain the organization’s thrifty budget throughout the next year. But if readers give even more support, VA hopes to expand its production of original analysis next year, said the writer.

“We would love to bring on new writers, produce more original analysis from different perspectives, expand our use of multimedia, and maybe even fund some of the expenses writers might accrue when we have them cover far away events,” said Suggett.

“Venezuela is changing and evolving, and we need to do the same in order to keep our readers properly informed, but we will simply be unable to do so in 2011 if we do not receive enough funding,” said the writer, emphasizing that the organization is entirely dependent on donations from readers and activist organizations.

Among the analyses VA writers produced last year were topics such as the National Assembly election results, the growing problem of government bureaucracy, an insider’s testimony about the expanding network of local communal councils, a review of the debate over agricultural chemical use and agroecology, and an overview of leftist labor unions’ recent critiques of the right wing of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

The website contains a series of “tags,” which are buttons that assist readers – particularly researchers – in navigating VA’s archive of eight years of news and analysis, video and audio material.

“What we write is appropriately contextualized and thoroughly researched,” Suggett commented. “This is in great contrast to the mainstream, privately-owned media which typically presents the bare minimum of basic facts about any given issue and then clouds those facts with unsubstantiated, editorialized statements – if not blatant lies.”  

“Not only is much of the mainstream journalism on Venezuela dishonest, these media outlets are contributing to a media blockade that severely limits democratic public debate about key issues of our time such as the world financial crisis,” Suggett concluded. “Our mission is to expand the public, democratic debate on the most significant issues affecting Venezuela and the Americas as a whole,” he said.

During last year’s fund drive, many readers generously supported independent media by contributing more than US$10,000 to VA over the course of two months, which sustained the organization’s entire yearly budget.

Source: Donate Today!