Shortly after starting at my last medium size marketing agency job I had the pleasure of hearing Alberto Cairo give a presentation on Infographics. He helped take what then was a passing interest in infographics into a full-blown passion.
My appetite not yet whetted, I then bought and studied the 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 volumes of The Best American Infographics and signed up to mailers like Information is Beautiful and started reading.
Why the fascination? Simply put, infographics and other means for visualizing data are incredibly useful means for organizing and presenting information that otherwise takes many paragraphs or pages.
Well. Better put, they can be.
After all, all Bugatti Chiron’s are cars, but not all cars are Bugatti Chirons.
When it comes to TeleSUR English’s Infographics not only do they lack any Bugattis in the line up of work they’ve produced, but most of their infographics are better classified as jalopies, scrap metal, or cardboard boxes.
Lest it appear that I’m overly harsh, I’ll review a few examples of the many infographics that have major issues in truthfulness and aesthetics.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information
This infographic, a term I clearly use loosely here because it’s really just a visual news release poorly conceived and executed, amuses me for a number of reasons.
I took a screenshot of this “infographic” to point out how several people that viewed it believed it to be the incorrect date listed on there and thus felt that it reduced their credibility as a news organization.
In TeleSUR English’s defense, this is an understandable mistake.
I’ve worked with enough graphic designers from Latin America to know that this is a typical error when producing based on designs for an American audience.
Similar errors include applying metric measurements, using comma’s instead of periods to indicate decimals and writing “Jaja” instead of “Haha”.
What’s makes this doubly funny is that even then, the date is still wrong.
In addition to these issues, you’ll notice after every period in the list that there is a hyphen.
1. –
2.-
3. –
Why? A full stop has been indicated, so there’s no need for a dash. It’s distracting and unnecessary.
In the places where the copy is gramatically correct, which is few and far between, the word choice doesn’t make sense. The writer of the copy clearly had English as a second language, which is fine, but the editor that approved publication should have checked it first.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information Part II
4 +10 +8 +12+ 26 +12+50= 122, not 185.
TeleSUR English’s Infographic is incorrect, though their source – Global Witness – is not only clear that this number is worldwide, but they also present the data in a far superior manner.
Clicking on the link above or exploring the map below demonstrated far superior means for displaying that data that does not lose credibility because they can’t do simple math.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information Part III
Besides the fact that the infographic is ugly – all of those people they show on there provide don’t assist in interpreting or understanding what is being depicted, but hampers quick interpretation. Then there’s the fact that they miscategorize the Massacre at Wounded Kneww as a “mass shooting” instead of an act of genocide. Futhermore, the one percent figure that’s on there, “31% of mass shootings happen in the US” isn’t contextualized. What they should be including is this in relation to the world’s population – which the United States makes up ~5% of.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that their research didn’t include a number of other mass shooting that other news outlets research teams discovered.
TeleSUR English Infographic That Is Ugly and Stupid
I found this particular infographic to be interesting, though not in a good way.
The first thing that stuck out to me on this – besides the garish blue and red color scheme – was the many percentages.
The five-second rule applies both to food that has fallen on the floor as well as to infographics. Perhaps a small percentage of people can determine what 3.7% is of 58 million, but all would agree that it’d be much easier if this particular number was just placed on the infographic.
Seeing the source, however, was the second thing. See that I knew immediately that not only was this infographic ugly, but that it was stupid. How so? Cause Pew Research understands data and how to visualize it.
TeleSUR English could have shown in greater detail where precisely Latino’s where – but did not.
In the TeleSUR English iteration, the Latinos just drop into the middle of the United States. Why visualize it that way when you can get even more gradient like the above? Whoever researched for this infographic must have seen it to get the data, but apparently didn’t think to mention to anyone at TeleSUR English that there was a better way of showing it there.
More than that, the infographic could have contained where Latinx people were and where they were going.
Migration Policy’s South American Immigrants in the United States gives a hint as to how much more useful a well-made infographic can be. Showing migration (new people) instead of (net people) allows them to tell a story about the changing conditions that latinos may be facing.
And let’s face it, these are latino people we are talking about, not latinx. Which is the first thing the people read when looking at the article and is something that a vast majority of people don’t use and is likely to make people want to dismiss it – a feeling compounded by the many percentages discussed earlier.
TeleSUR English Infographic That Is Useless
There’s a joke somewhere connecting being high to whoever signed off on this, but I don’t want to perpetuate false stereotypes of drug users.
While I’m focusing on the essential worthlessness of the infographic, I also want to point out that none of the flags on the infographic are correct.
Washington State Flag
Colorado State Flag
Oregon State Flag
Now when I say that this infographic is useless I mean this in a number of ways.
Additionally worth noting is that ALL of the infographics are not paired with any textual content – be it a news story, opinion article or analysis that TeleSUR English has produced.
What, you may ask could have been shown instead? Excellent question.
If this was connected to some story, for instance comparing the cost of percent THC to price?
THC facts from UruguayTHC facts from Colorado
But not, that’s not really all that interested either. Here’s some examples of “marijuana infographics”:
Now I have my issues with this infographic too – it needs a source listed; the deaths per substance at the bottom should be a bar chart; the prohibition cost listed covers all of drugs war spending (though for what year I don’t know) rather than just marijuana so that’s not appropriate either.
But even then this is at least giving some useful information besides an appropriate price to pay a drug dealer.
This chart I really love, which really isn’t a surprise because Statista always produces great work.
***
Despite my criticism of the past four years of the infographics that TeleSUR English’s has produced and the people that signed off on it, there may be a change coming soon.
Earlier today, February 22nd, Patricia Villegas tweeted the following.
While I’m glad that Patricia Villegas has begun multimedia journalism workshops for TeleSUR and TeleSUR Englis at their headquarters in Caracas.
Furthermore, I also wonder what’s happening with the content that they produce – is it going to be disseminated solely for the people present there, or are they going to make this useful information available for free somewhere on there website so that anyone from the Global South can download it and learn it?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see as to their level of adherence to their stated commitment to those in the Global South. After all, not everyone can afford to spend the money on the books that I have in my quest to master the craft of creating quality inforgraphics.
I’ve had a lot of thoughts after learning about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
When I taught at South Broward, Chris Hixon was a teacher there.
For three years I went to that school once a month for weekend debate tournaments with my team.
We had very different styles, but he was always helpful to me in getting the students involved in sports teams more motivated than they would be on their own accord. For a starting teacher, this is a huge deal.
Hearing of what he did before he was shot didn’t suprise me at all. I’m sharing the below as a poor iteration of a memorial for someone I didn’t know all that well personally, but through our interactions always impressed me as a person of great character.
Athletic Director Chris Hixon tried to disarm shooter to save the students he loved
BY LINDA ROBERTSON
February 20, 2018 06:44 PM
Chris Hixon, the athletic director and wrestling coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, was so dedicated to his students that when coaching vacancies forced him to consider discontinuation of various sports, he stepped to the sideline and coached them himself. At different times, he coached five sports at the school, for zero supplemental pay.
“He did it for free because he wasn’t eligible for extra pay,” said Jeff Morford, an assistant principal. “Cross country, volleyball, wrestling, basketball and track and field. He was there until 9 p.m. most nights. He was all about the kids. He would do anything for them.”
So no one was surprised to hear the accounts of Hixon speeding in a golf cart toward the sound of gunfire Wednesday when a former student walked into the school at dismissal time with an AR-15 rifle and began shooting people in the freshman building. Hixon’s immediate reaction was to protect the students and stop the attack. Hixon was one of 17 victims at the Parkland school gunned down by the 19-year-old shooter.
“We heard he tried to disarm the shooter,” said Dan Jacob, athletic director and wrestling coach at Coral Springs High and a friend of Hixon’s for 20 years. “He always put others ahead of himself. He was the first to help people out. He just loved teaching and coaching kids and watching them grow up. Many tears have been shed; that’s what he meant to everybody. I’m going to try to be more like Chris.”
Hixon, 49, was to be feted at a surprise birthday party next week. He is survived by wife Debbie, the magnet program coordinator at South Broward High, and two sons. Tommy is in the U.S. Marine Corps and Corey is a special-needs young man who was a regular with his father at Eagles sporting events.
Hixon, who grew up as a wrestler in Easton, Pa., was to coach his wrestling team in the district tournament the day after the shooting. It was postponed until Wednesday, the same day his funeral will be held.
“He was trying to move kids out of the way of the shooter and that is 100 percent Chris because he was looking out for them and they adored him for genuinely caring about them,” said Allen Held, wrestling coach at Cypress Bay High who worked with Hixon at South Broward High. He recalled how Hixon would get down on the mat to practice moves with his athletes. “He was a positive coach — not a screamer — who always found the silver lining, even in a loss. We made a $1 bet when we wrestled against Douglas, and he handed me a $1 bill and I made it into a ring which I’ll keep forever to remember what a great human being he was.”
Hixon, named Broward County’s Athletic Director of the Year in 2017, served in the Navy in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
“It is a shame that he fought in Iraq and comes back and gets killed on his home soil,” Jacob said.
Jesus Luzardo, an injured pitcher when Douglas won the 2016 state and national championships and now playing for the Oakland A’s organization, has launched a Chris Hixon Student Athlete Scholarship Fund.
“Chris was doing what he loved in the place he loved when he went down,” Morford said. “He was as good a man as they come. Our hearts are broken.”
However as I’ll now demonstrate, these political and academic roles did not provide him the knowledge of the modern digital media ecology that’s necessary for one to be a successful Director of such an operation as TeleSUR English and he has not since grasped how to do this in his 4 years at TeleSUR English.
Starving The Target Audience
Pablo Vivanco has signed off on the production of thousands of articles that the vast majority of Americans typically avoid reading. Not because of the subject matter or perspective, but because of their reading level.
While TeleSUR English’s departing from industry standard by attempting to provide more context to the news event is laudable, their decision to ignore industry standards by publishing way above most American’s reading level is not. Simply put, it alienates potential readers.
These errors not only drive people away, but negatively effects search ranking, thus making it more difficult for those searching for context to come across the information on their website.
Whereas other major digital media operations like New York Times and the Washington Post have transitioned to more interactive storytelling approaches that uses R, Tableau, Excel and similar programs TeleSUR English stagnates by using the same broken javascript frames to merely link traditional photo with traditional text. Information is beautiful, but the way TeleSUR English presents it’s stories is often not.
The Importance of Knowing and Applying the New Media Paradigm
The biggest problems TeleSUR English struggles with is, it seems, a lack of knowledge of or adherence to new media best practices.
In the new media environment the essential driver for growth is building relationships.
In a highly congested digital media landscape, forming a lasting relationship means you can reach more people and influence more people for less money. It takes the form of onsite engagement, large email subscriber numbers, people positively referencing your work on other websites.
A cursory review of TeleSUR English’s Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as their on-site comments sections shows the barest of engagement, even in the places where one might expect it.
Onsite Example of a Failed Controversy Meant to Drive Engagement
Comparing the 6 comments here to the 2,685 found on this Breitbart article, on a roughly similar topic at around the same time, it’s clear that it didn’t achieve the desired effect of generating comments at all. What it shows is that TeleSUR English has a small audience that doesn’t care to engage even when content that should offend the target audience is posted.
Twitter Example of Failed Engagement
None of these stats should convince you that TeleSUR English is investing in what matters.
As it relates to information on Twitter’s engagement for this article, I decided against using an API to scrape, review, process and interpret the information about this due to the cost as it’s immediately evident that there’s a lack-of-meaningful engagement here as well.
Instead of what works, both accounts simply drown their readers in posts.
The motto of TeleSUR English seems to be quantity over quality.
Pablo Vivanco’s Fake Social Media Stats
At the 2016 Left Forum, Pablo Vivanco spoke about his experiences as the Director of TeleSUR English.
While the entirety of his presentation has not been made available (and if anyone happens to have it I would hope that the email it to me), I was able to discover an interesting quote from his presentation:
“Social media platforms are controlled by corporate media,” he [Pablo] said, “But these are the ways people consume information and news. To not participate is to cede space we shouldn’t cede.”
“When we launched there was a fair amount of resources put into buying views and likes on social media platforms,” Vivanco said ruefully. “But social media functions on algorithms. You need organic engagement and reach- using networks and working with others, building engagement.”
In a few public words Pablo Vivanco gave evidence as to why TeleSUR English should be penalized by algorithms designed to halt “fake news”.
Whether or not Facebook, Google and other such algorithms are designed to find and factor in such comments is honestly beyond me, but I do know that an event occurred which provides insight into just how many followers Pablo Vivanco purchased and how many of TeleSUR English’s followers are actually real. It was shocking to me as it was MUCH lower than what I’d projected initially.
How a Fake News Story that Fooled Newsweek Provides Insight into TeleSUR English’s Readership Numbers
At a time where Facebook censorship is a hot-button issue, no other media outlets picked up the story. If this sounds surprising, it’s less so after the story becomes clearer.
For one, shortly after publication, a correction was made to correct the prior claim that Facebook censored them. The reality being that this was just speculation on the part of Pablo Vivanco.
Secondarily, a little bit of research shows that Carlos Ballesteros and Pablo Vivanco are long-standing political colleagues – evidenced by their co-existent signatures on a resolution defending the SNTE teacher union, in a La Jornada declaration from March 2013 on pages 12-13. Most outlets doing background, like myself were likely to have picked this up and seen the article as a favor to a friend.
There are other issues with this article as well, such as Carlos Ballesteros informing the reader that “TeleSUR boasts a viewership of nearly half a billion people in 110 countries,” which defies all projections that I’ve seen. However the real interesting thing, is the organic response after the profile was taken down, presumably, for political censorship.
TeleSUR English’s Actual Audience Numbers
After the false report that TeleSUR English was censored began circulation, a page called TeleSUR News Aggregate came into existence and posted notifications to follow it in a number of Leftist-oriented groups on Facebook and alternative news sites.
What’s notable about this is that the number of people who rallied in “defense” of TeleSUR English was a far cry from the ~410,000 currently “liking” it – only 3,538 people.
Also notable is how that now a single person in any of the 40+ “Friends of TeleSUR English” Facebook groups said a peep about it’s being temporarily unpublished.
Does this mean that there are 406,000 fake likes for TeleSUR English on Facebook?
It’s possible. The only was we would know for sure was if this company engaged in some radical transparency.
If we presume that operating costs dropped from $17.6 million in the first year to 10 to 15 million in the following four years, this would then mean that the average amount of money that the governments supporting TeleSUR English was spending per genuine follower – taken to be the number of people that followed TeleSUR News Aggregate – is $16,053.
True, this doesn’t include the numbers of followers from TeleSUR English’s other properties, however, it’s quite likely that those numbers are equally false and I think it fair to state that the primary outlet is likely to be the most authoritative source for actual numbers.
I would LOVE for TeleSUR English to release their live streaming numbers as over a week long period wherein I randomly checked their feed I never saw viewership reach over seven people at a time.
TeleSUR English is unique in today’s media environment.
Unlike other media news companies wholly or partially funded by foreign governments – such as BBC and Britain; RT and Russia, 24 and France – TeleSUR English is avowedly socialist in its political orientation. There are no red flags or five pointed stars in its masthead to indicate this but it is evident in other ways.
He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
TeleSUR’s main financial supporter is Venezuela, ruled by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Additionally the non-current event content shared on their social media pages includes quotes and photos from socialists such as Rosa Luxembourg, the Black Panther Party, Patrice Lumumba; people that were sympathetic to socialists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; and a variety of other socialist related content.
In their About Me section, TeleSUR English claims that they want to be “A space and a voice for the construction of a new communications order” centered around the subject of “Global South” an allusion to social, political and economic justice.
Why I Decided to Review TeleSUR English’s Digital Footprint
In December of 2017, a few months after I left a job as a Creative Director at a major marketing firm, I decided to make a case study on TeleSUR English that I would later publish on Medium.
To accomplish this I looked underneath the proverbial hood of this modern iteration of a radical newspaper to see what was doing well and what needed to be changed.
My intent in looking at various key performance indicators I’d previously used in the digital media strategy and marketing realm to compare to Russia’s attempt to influence America.
On first look, what I discovered was disconcerting, but as I continued to research, something more nefarious emerged.
Why What I Discovered on Reviewing TeleSUR English Required A Public Report
Why? I’m not sure but I imagine that it has to do with fact that I uncovered at TeleSUR English what looks to be corruption and gross incompetence, if not sabotage.
How do I know this?
Some of the bad stats were intentionally produced to be misleading as to the level of success of TeleSUR English’s operations.
Some of the bad stats were intentionally produced as the person directing operations was either incompetent or is trying to purposely sabotage TeleSUR English’s operations.
Future Historians Will Refer to The First 5 Years of TeleSUR English’s Wasted Money and Opportunities as it’s Lost Half-Decade
If someone should write about the history of TeleSUR English they will refer to it as The Lost Half Decade. Why? Because of how badly TeleSUR English has been directed since its inception in the digital realm. How bad is it? Below is an explanation as to why it happened as well as several examples of the criminal-level incompetency that I’ve discovered.
Worthless Metrics Promoted as Meaningful
In the description on his LinkedIn account, Pablo Vivanco writes the following:
“With a reduced staff and budget, improved metric outreach by over 2000% in under 12 months”
As impressive a number as 2000% is, anyone that’s done any sort of digital marketing, growth hacking or any kind of content marketing strategy will tell you – outreach by itself is an entirely meaningless metric.
Nobody cares about the numbers of emails sent that are never opened; the number of dofollow links placed on low Domain Authority user-generated webpages; or the links posted on websites that are never read, etc. Google, especially, doesn’t care about these.
While this number can be useful in comparison to something else over time – for instance outreach numbers in relationship to A/B testing email headers, only someone that doesn’t have a professional understanding of digital media ecology would self-publicize about such a metric, let alone authorize the spending of tens of thousands of dollars to achieve such a metric.
Key performance indicators that ought to be monitored to track and map improvement include the following:
Number of email subscriptions.
Genuine number of followers of social media accounts.
Genuine engagement level on social media accounts.
Domain authority.
Brand/website awareness.
Number of readers.
Reader engagement (i.e. Time Spent on Pages, Number of Pages Traversed, Comments/Shares).
Any person wishing to genuinely understand and track the health of TeleSUR English, or any website for that matter, should be looking at these key performance indicators.
Looking at TeleSUR English’s social media footprint, we can see the shape of such mismanagement.
False Followers on All Social Media
On TeleSUR English’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Accounts there is ample evidence that many of the people which are “Following” these accounts are not real.
Pablo Vivanco admitted this was true while on the phone with me.
Lacking internal access to their social media accounts and to their internal purchases (to check for “Pay for Followers” services) I cannot say for certain what proportion that this is actually is, but I can estimate and what I can say authoritatively is that they have zero value.
False Followers on Twitter
TwitterAudit suggests that about 80% of TeleSUR English’s followers are real, however based on engagement numbers demographics and the number of people following them that follow over 500 people, I’d say actual people following are about one-half to two thirds of what is actually shown for Twitter. A full report from Twitnomy could easily show me wrong.
False Followers on YouTube
For the number of YouTube views and subscriptions, I would say the percent of people that are fake to real is much higher.
Given the ratios of ratings of videos, to engagement via comments, to view numbers I’d say that it is likely half of the views and subscriptions aren’t real.
False Followers on Facebook
There’s fewer means for determining false engagement levels on Facebook outside the app itself, so I decided to try an experiment.
After reviewing a number of posts people, I noticed a number of recurring names.
Given many of these people’s profiles were almost entirely not in English, I was surprised. I understand that it’s normal in many places for English to be a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language – but there was just zero indication other than a TeleSUR English link that it was within there repertoire. As such I decided to send friend requests and message ten people to see how many responded. Out of the ten, only one did.
Now does this mean only one in ten of their followers are real? Certainly not.
What it does mean that someone at TeleSUR English has been paying for follower services, which ought to be categorized as an improper allocation of tax resources.
Interesting to note: What happened shortly after I tried this experiment? Facebook took down the TeleSUR English Facebook page.
***Update 2/11/18***
Because of the above section, I’ve since been accused that I want to “destroy” TeleSUR English. This is simply not true, I simply do not believe that paying for fake followers is a defensible strategy.
Furthermore, I’ve since learned from an internal source that the unpublishing of the TeleSUR English Facebook page was an accident on their part. That they’ve not commented on this, to me, is totally irresponsible and a further example of their willingness to distort the truth for their own narrative gain.
Other Examples of Corruption
TeleSUR English has now been in existence for over four years and as a result of their choosing a director primarily for ideological rather than professional reasons, TeleSUR English pursued a number of content ideation, production and digital media strategies that are not considered best practices by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Examples of Best Practices Not Being Followed
One example of TeleSUR English not following best practices is with its abundance of high production videos that are simply too long.
YouTube and Facebook videos which are most often shared are five minutes and under. While longer format content certainly fulfills a need, TeleSUR English ignores all data-based advice by not repurposing what they’ve already produced into short and succinct segments that are more readily sharable and digestible.
That the above video has only 38 views is both a testament to its length and the bizarre name “Birds of the Apocalypse” that means a person looking for information on “Vulture Funds” will have great difficulty finding it.
Additionally there are the technical mistakes which sometimes require viewers to tell the TeleSUR English staff that the video they are live-streaming is sideways.
Such mistakes happen naturally, it’s only human. However it seems that TeleSUR English has such an abundance of them as the person directing the enterprise simply doesn’t know how to optimize their digital media presence.
Wrong Backlinking Strategy
A well-executed back-linking strategy is an incredibly powerful means for establishing a higher Domain Authority and drawing in readers. However from the above view from Ahrefs we can see that this was not the case.
The strategy which TeleSUR English followed was to take a route that allowed for the wrong kind of data to be presented in fair light rather quickly – “outreach”. Outreach in this instance means putting over a million links on low domain authority websites that has their content generated by users.
Not only does this not constitute an effective strategy, but changes on the content platform could remove all of that effort with a terms of service change or a coterie of committed, computer literature people could remove all of those links.
It’s understandable WHY someone would want to do this – currently some of the top referring pages to TeleSUR English are from Wikipedia, however this doesn’t justify this as a strategy but instead as a reason why to change strategy.
Any government funded institution that spends money on a back-linking strategy that involves people placing hundreds of thousands of links on Wikipedia, Pinterest and GooglePlus is guilty of gross incompetence and misuse of public funds.
Terrible User Experience Encourages Visitors to Bounce
The above screenshot capture is one of the numerous examples that illustrate the website was not properly designed.
Difficulty browsing frequently causes viewers to leave the page and I imagine that their bounce rate is exceptionally high.
After all, what sort of credibility can you grant to an enterprise that doesn’t know how to properly put the pieces together that allows for the dissemination of content?
Wrong Content Management Strategy
Many articles simply don’t have a title.
Many of the pages on TeleSUR English lack titles or anchor text. This is a basic and important component of websites. That it’s not there means that there is no Quality Assurance or Editorial staff that knows to include these before publication. That so much of their web content has been posted without this indicated a lack of competency on the work the Director oversees.
No One Is The Reporter
You’re the Reporter Section January 8th, 2018You’re the Reporter Section January 19th, 2018
The brief report I sent to Pablo Vivanco mentioned how in the You’re the Reporter subheading of TeleSUR English there were only five articles and that the last one published was over a year old.
This must have struck a nerve, as a few days later the content therein was deleted while the header remained.
What a telling symbol of the Director of TeleSUR English’s technical incompetence: he can’t even properly delegate the deletion of the entire section – only the content within the section!
Beyond just a symbol of incompetence, what else does this say about Pablo Vivanco’s directorship of TeleSUR English that after multiple years he still hasn’t been able to come up with a means for attracting, retaining and developing talent that wants to write from the perspective TeleSUR English wishes to promote.
Orlando Perez and Pablo Vivanco: TeleSUR English’s Corrupt Leaders
Orlando Perez
One of the Austrian School’s criticisms of the socialist mode of workplace administration and management is what they see as the tendency for innovation to be lost in production. Why? Those which meekly follow “the Party Line” would take up such a position rather than those that are most meritorious.
While I think that most of this school of thought to be ahistorical and metaphysical – this could explain the reason why TeleSUR, let alone TeleSUR English, doesn’t make it into the top 100 Latin American Newspapers Web Rankings.
Certain personality types, after all, prefer to keep power to themselves and act as a barrier for those that might be better equipped to direct. These are the kind of people that insulate themselves with a coterie of sycophants rather than surround themselves with the type of talent that is continuously striving for excellence.
Now admittedly I do not know much of the history of the people involved in TeleSUR English other than what I’ve been able to piece together from forums and blogs on the internet, but the story which emerged seems to confirm that the Hayek’s concerns have been actualized at TeleSUR English.
There are numerous (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) accounts of TeleSUR English’s difficult working environment and the person who oversees it’s Director, Oscar Perez, has had his fare share of controversy as well.
In 2017 Orlando Perez was fired from El Telegrafo as part of a political change up. Shortly thereafter he fled Quito, Ecuador for Miami, Florida following his assault on his former girlfriend. After he decided to stop evading arrest and returned to Quito, he held a press conference to explain everything and has since maintained his innocence, but in a highly politicized context wherein working for a leftist state-media publication is seen a mar on one’s resume, this doesn’t really matter.
In an environment where attracting and retaining talent is already hard, appearance matters and it’s no logical leap to say that talented women may be shy of wanting to work in an environment they are concerned about male aggression.
Besides this consideration, there Orlando Perez’s proclaimed political purity and orthodoxy that takes on a sinister tone when it comes to how he views his opponents. After translating several of his articles and interviews (1, 2), I noticed an overlap in our political views. However where he uses abelist language to refer to the “the autistic left” I refer to this group as politically aloof hedonism as I see no reason to insult and alienate potential allies as well as those with mental impairments.
En toto, considering that TeleSUR English states that they want to be “A space and a voice for the construction of a new communications order” centered around the subject of “Global South” an allusion to social, political and economic justice – it makes me wonder why they would have someone directing the decision-making process considering that clearly alienates so many potential allies and talent.
Pablo Vivanco
Not being a reporter with numerous articles by and about him, learning about Pablo Vivanco has been more difficult. From what I can tell his experience in digital media starts with him at TeleSUR English and besides the above, which shows that he has directed operations as if it were still the early 1990s and without a thought to the important nuances which make up effective digital strategy, there is little else worth noting.
I admit this is total conjecture, but it certainly seems to me likely that Orlando Perez would want to cover up the extent of Pablo Vivanco’s ability to formulate and enact a digital media strategy based upon the current best practices shared by the social media outlets that TeleSUR English uses.
In the wake of his domestic assault case, this would likely become another reason those in power would want to distance themselves from him and thus he needs it swept under the rug.
***Update 2/11/18***
I’ve received confirmation from a source inside TeleSUR English that confirms my above speculations about Orlando’s insulting, overbearing demeanor. I’ll quote this in an second article in the event I get more feedback.
Why Speaking Up and Out is More Important Than “Keeping it Professional” in This Instance
The reason that I’ve decided to write and publish this assessment is simple: It’s what an honest citizen with professional abilities and integrity would do in the situation – call out incompetence and corruption to help ensure the optimum function of a government institution.
TeleSUR encourages greater transparency in all governmental affairs, no surprise as it was in part founded to counter the lies of corporate media that had a major role in the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez Frias.
Ecuador has given asylum to Julian Assange and the governments of all TeleSUR contributors initially a defended Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. While U.S. politicians called these people traitors, seditionists and said that they should be killed without trial – the voices representing The South defended their actions as a service to the world. People have a right, they said, to know the extent of surveillance and espionage that everyday people and various businesses were subject to.
TeleSUR English, however, does not themselves abide by such values as transparency that the governments paying its bill claims to promote. Instead, it replicates an elite-est strand of authoritarian socialism that lies to it’s readers and tells itself it’s doing “good work”.
Doña Barbaba is a compelling epic of the llanos – the easterly region of Venezuela – that translated into several movies and television series. In the backstory we learn that the settler progenitors of the protagonists of the story enacted horrors on the indigenous tribes from the Cunaviche to the Aruaca basin in order dispossess the natives. They were successful in doing so, but as a result of this the families involved were cursed. While something not spoken of, like Voldemort’s name, even generations later it still informs the behavior of those working at the Altamira ranch. There is on area on the property with a tree long ago struck by lightning around which nothing grows. The peons and the ranch hands all avoid this area.
Following the settlement of the area and the curse, the Luzardo family began to have internal conflict. When the family became rich and numerous, some of its members went to the city, and petitioned for parts of the land to be sold. This eventually happened, giving rise to two families in control of this vast region. Whether it was the curse of the indigenous or just the vanity of those engaged in the reprisals, a dispute between the two heads soon emptied nearly both branches of the family.
The laws set up in the wake of indigenous dispossession was according to rules that encouraged many varieties of primitive capitalist accumulative behaviors by hook or by crook. Be it theft of animals by branding over another ranches mark, finding buyers that didn’t care what was what, or enacting lawsuit in the court of a judge that’s already in pocket, the llanos are are place where “the only way to get respect here is to kill someone.” This is because the llanos, like New York City for Carrie, is a place location with a life and personality all of its own.
TV series adaptation of Dona Barbara set in modern times
One of the compelling metaphors mobilized in the beginning is the reflection by the narrator that those that settled the llanos were not entirely men – but were centaurs. This is sensible given the amount of time that they spend on their horses and also the classical conception of them as half-beast half men. They are the ones between beast, or indigenous people, and men, as while they scatter them
Doña Barbara not so subtly represents the settler barbarism required to dispossess people of their historic rights. She has a daughter out of wedlock, Marisela, with Lorenzo, the cousin of the soon to be introduced protagonist Santos Luzardo, but leaves the child to him so that she can focus on accumulating her own ranch.
Illustration by Alberto Nicasio from the Peuser edition
Much like Rosario Tiejeras, which I read immediately preceding this, Doña Barbara was raped as a teenager. Barbara too is associated with magic and murder. Though she has no group of girls that seek to follow her ways, The Ogress as she is called, is also quite attractive and uses her feminine wiles to get what she needs done. Because of this she never needs to pull the trigger on someone who has something she wants or who has insulted her herself, but this is as she has a veritable stable of disreputable men on the run from authorities in other areas are willing to do anything for her should they think that it is what she wants. Doña Barbara’s dalliance with dark rituals is also more than a passing phase. She has a Dark Stranger, code for the devil, which helps her in her plans to enrich herself.
Santos Luzardo, a doctor by education, representing the purportedly calmer and legalistic side of civilization – ironic considering the criminality it took for his family to obtain the land – and seeks to undo the encroachment made on his families property by Doña Babara and her retinue of henchmen.
Romulo Gallegos’ includes a number of songs and poem fragments throughout the book. This impressed and surprised me, as having no real experience working as a cattle hand, I’d never have imagined the degree to which they laud poetry – as if to provide their inner refinement despite their outer simple appearance. In one of many similar passages connecting the cowboy to song and poetry, Gallegos writers the following:
“As evening came on, the cowboys came back in noisy groups, began to talk, and ended by singing their thoughts in ballad form, for if there is anything which must be said, the Plainsman always has a ballad or a poem which says it and says it better than speech.”
All in all I really loved this book, the narrative was compelling, the cast of color characters were lifelike and for a 400+ page book the pace of it was fast. I loved all that proto-magical realist elements in it which showcased the many superstitions and strong beliefs of the people in the region. I look forward to reading this again in a few years and finding new things to appreciate about it.
The story of Rosario Tiejaras so strongly resonates with the Colombian and Latin American audience that it has been made into a movie and a T.V. show much in the way that La Femme Nikita has in the United States. Except instead of there being a secretive government organization that uses wayward, attractive youth which was to be executed for their crimes to ensure the maintenance of American power through targeted assassinations by newly minted model-like merchants of death, Rosario has no such assistance other than her brother, Johnefe, a low level associate with the cartel that wants to rise in the ranks by taking risky jobs as a sicaro.
The novel opens in media res by her one-time lover and friend taking her to a nearby hospital in a cab. She is bleeding extensively after being shot and is badly injured. The first sentence is one of many that I find utterly compelling, so am sharing it here:
“Since Rosario has been shot at point blank range while she was being kissed, she confused the pain of death with that of love.”
With this frame narrative established, we then learn about the backstory of the girl that the narrator is in love with despite the many red flags.
Rosario is 15 years old mestiza. Her parents came from the country in search of work – but lacking connections and skills, they soon turned to scavenging the city garbage. Her mother later become trained as a seamstress and got security as a live-in maid, but after the pregnancy was discovered her father left.
Tijeras, or scissors in Spanish, is not a common surname. In fact, it’s not a last name at all. Rosario explains received this nick name after she’d castrated the man who’d raped her when she was twelve. She’d run into him a few months later, seduced him and then brought him back to her house. Once there, she gets her revenge and he fled the house screaming, leaving a trail of blood from between his legs. He’s never seen again.
This is one of the many men that Rosario kills. Rosario doesn’t shy away from violence when disrespected, shooting and killing several people at point blank range.
Jorge Franco’s fiction is so powerful as rather than simply writing a sensational, but true to real life story, he is able to connect the hyper-sexualized and hyper-violent Rosario Tijeras to the broader historic forces pushing her in this direction without it being preachy. In a number of little details sprinkled throughout, we get to learn about the places where she picks up the view that her actions are not just acceptable but necessary if she is to have any chance at a life that doesn’t replicate what she sees as her mother’s endless drudgery. She wants to win at life, however winning in her case is difficult given her conditions and dangerous considering what she decides to do to achieve this. Commenting on the latter, here’s what the narrator says:
“Rosario’s fight isn’t so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on her with the weight of this country, her genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with the blade of a machete cleared the pathways of life… Once proud, we are now ashamed, without understanding how, why, and when it all happened. We don’t know how long our history is, but we can feel it’s weight.”
For Rosario, this weight takes on a number of forms.
For one, on her body. Whenever she kills someone, she puts on weight and isolates herself. Once back to her normal form, she is able to exploit her beauty and sexual skills to get what she needs. And what a beauty she is.
And also in her search for meaning in the world. When her prayers to the Virgin of Perpetual Help and Christ Child goes unanswered, she briefly dabbles with Satanism. This ends, however, after she kills one of the members of the sect – which leads to a number of rumors being circulated about her. The stories are a mixture of invention, reality and an admixture of the two – and soon enough a number of other girls start adding the words “Rosario” or “Tiejeras” to their name.
The narrator at several points describes Rosario, in fact, less as a human than as a divine figure, an avatar of Death and Beauty wrapper up into one person – a dark eyed whore in a mini-skirt with bare-midriff top. The incarnation of Fear and Attraction wrapped up in one person, Rosario is both human and symbol.
The Poetry of the Dispossessed
“Did you ever notice that death rhymes with breath?” Rosario observed.
I was dabbling in poetry those days, and since she was curious I get her a little involved with what I was reading. She related everything to death, even the explication of my poetry…
There was a time when the three of us would shut ourselves up for an entire Sunday to smoke marijuana and read poetry. We would find phrases that made us think we understood the world now, others that made us nod our heads, leaving us speechless…”
In a country where saying the truth can lead to death, it’s perhaps not surprising that the three characters here all feel an affection for poetry – with all its creative and innovative ways for expression.
In fact, with this in mind it’s worth noting something that Rosario says in the opening of the book.
“Nobody’s ever going to kill me. I’m a weed.”
Notice the “weed” tattoo on her right hand…
And though in the last pages we learn of her death, there is a deeper degree of truth to her statement. Jorge Franco’s character may have died, but the soil within which she grew still remains and there are many other similar stories just like Rosario’s. The Narcos, which sometimes take her away for a week or more from Emilio, never take only her but have a clique of bad bitches that are able to join her at a moment’s notice.
While not evident by the book, I’ve spoken with Colombianas who’ve watched Sin Tetas Sin Hay Paradiso and viewed it as a guide rather than a warning, and who see the video for Beck G’s Mayores as inspirational rather than a sad commentary on Colombian society. Which is sensible, in a way, as those that would morally condemn the values within such cultural productions and the behaviors described therein rarely look at the structural issues.
While it’s not related particularly to this book, it’s this fact that’s made me think that there’s a connection between consumption of trap and places where the informal economy is a large means for people to get their needs met. It seems an intuitive truth worth writing more detail about elsewhere.
While I found myself sometime cringing at the narrators repressed love for Rosario, I am quite a fan of Jorge Franco’s urgent narrative style and the manner in which he is able to make her and her story so compelling.
By the end of reading Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo I was incredible upset. Not because of any other reason than the character of Chancaltana has gone through an extreme personality shift such that when his actions outside Ayachuco – population 1,575 – are described I wished that the author continued to describe his story there. I liked it so much, in fact, that I think I may use the name of the prosecutor in one of the passages of Unravelling so that he may continue to live and struggle.
In Ayachuco, a rural region of Peru on the outskirts of civilization, where Sendero Luminosa was once a major power against any sort of Government encroachment, in an area with a large percentage of indigenous people still live traditional lives, a civil war long announced in the press of the capital and its environs continues – though only at a simmer. Commenting on the state of things in the region in a nearby town, prior to an election to be held at gunpoint, one of the soldiers openly states: “There’s no law here. Do you think you’re in Lima? Please.”
The military government decreed by Fujimori is highly repressive, it’s ranks are paranoid should their crimes against the people in their zeal for Order come to light and despite the claim that peace has been brought to the region, they still control a number of police and civilian functions. In the interactions between anyone thought to represent the government and “normal people” there is a type of abject, terrified submission to the wishes of the officials that shows just how hard the brutality is against those who did not follow orders. Bolstering their presence are loudspeakers in all four corners of the town square wherein the writing of those that submitted to the government are read aloud, examples for how to behave for everyone listening.
Santiago Rancagliolo’s literary brushstrokes of the town of Ayachuco, its people and its environs is stark and desolate. Chancaltana has arrived in Ayachuco shortly after an usually corpse has been found – badly burned and missing a limb. Within a few days a number of other corpses are discovered. As Chancaltana seeks to uncover the perpetrator, he discovers a connection between the religious calendar, which will soon draw many domestic and international tourists to the tow because of the religious processions, as well as an ancient, indigenous prophecy and the military.
Sendero Luminoso Poster
Felix Chancaltana Saldivar is an investigative prosecutor that arrives into the town following the death of the previous prosecutor. Electing to return to his town of birth following his wife’s divorce of him for having no ambition, he is an unusual fellow. While he has high-brow cultural aspirations evident in the fact that the meticulously writes reports that may only be read by one or two people. After one such creation, he looks at it and “…repeated to himself with satisfaction that in his lawyer’s heart, a poet struggled to emerge.”
By no means a sympathetic character, Chancaltana took a little bit for me to warm up to him. The government functionary type that is always relying upon legal formulas and precedence to guide him, it wasn’t until the end of the novel that his obsession with everything being by the book as well as his fixation with his dead mother finally made sense. It was a little infuriating to not know this aspect of his story for so long, but was a good tension builder for when the story is finally told it’s one suspenseful component among others that results in a crescendo of revelation. As for the romantic subplot, if one can really call it that, let’s just say that even with the norms of the place being what they are what transpires continues the trend of disdain for the character.
Civilians holding up photos of loved ones that were non-combatants killed by the Peruvian military.
Intrigued by the title, I decided to read a less academic work on Venezuela and so decided to pick up Jamie Maslin’s book Socialist Dreams and Beauty Queens: A Couchsurfer’s Memoir of Venezuela. Having done an extensive amount of backpacking myself I was curious to read how he connected his various touristic consumptions in relation to the two topics in the title. What I discovered was that while the Socialist Dreams is a recurring theme, the Beauty Queens only make it into the pages as a missed opportunity.
The praise on the front cover of the book compares Maslin to “Bill Bryson meets Jack Kerouac” which is serious praise that is, I believe, undeserving. Meslin’s account of his time traveling throughout Caracas, Maracaibo, various rural areas and parks was on the whole enjoyable, but a few intelligent asides does not Bryson make and travelling with the assistance of the hospitality of strangers and writing long passages describing the beauty of nature doesn’t make one a Kerouac. Regarding the former, I thought the segues he made between what was in front of him and the history prior was generally appropriate, lacking deeper cultural and social connection to the country – as well as appropriate language skills – made me feel that this was also sort of surface level observations. I touch upon this more in an example below. Additionally, given the inclusion of photos in the book, I felt that such long sketches of nature were spurious. No amount of words, after all, can compare to a photo of Angel Falls.
Angel Falls
Jamie Maslin travels descriptions of the many natural wonders that he visited certainly piqued my interest as locations to visit were I to go to Venezuela. Cubagua, Punta de Piedras, and the Roraima Tepui all seem like magical places to experience. His descriptive language does a good job capturing the appearance and atmosphere, while the words of others he encounters in them shows a charming self-awareness at the at times absurd situations he finds himself in because of his particular travelling style: begpacker.
Tepuy Roraima
While all in all I enjoyed the tale, however it did leave me to think about the nature of inter-cultural exchanges.
At several points Jamie recites his experience as an CourchSurfing host and tells of a traveler that he met in Venezuela taking him up on this offer. Yet despite the reciprocity on offer to those that hose him in Venezuela, he is, however, seemingly ignorant of the near impossibility of them ever being able to take him up on that offer.
Isla Cubagua, Venezuela
Many of the people that he stays with are not only so poor as to be unlikely to ever want to spend the money they could save to travel to a capital of Empire like London, but most are unlikely to be able to obtain a visa to leave. However thoughtful the presumption that his staying with them is predicated on reciprocity, that actuality of it is thus empty.
Jamie also repeats throughout that he only wants to pay “local prices” and tells several was which he is able to accomplish this – always through someone else’s assistance. As someone that frequently travels on a budget I definitely understand the desire to make one’s buck go farther, but I think that he takes being parsimonious and stingy to the point of fetishizing poorness and authenticity instead of recognizing it as a game. Let me give a few examples.
At a park Jamie tries to light a fire the “indigenous way” by rubbing together a number of sticks. An elderly Pemoi woman, seeing him, comes over and offers her lighter – disrupting any notion that the natives wholly reject the products of civilization.
To save a few dollars Jamie puts himself in uncomfortable and undesirable situations multiple times because he either doesn’t have a cellphone; doesn’t speak Spanish; wants to save the equivalent of $10 by taking a “different” tour; doesn’t want to get someplace a certain manner. Going on a five-star tour would be disingenuous as well, however given the refrain he shares regarding the conditions of filth and/or poverty that many Venezuelans live in and how he didn’t feel safe this seems disingenuous as well. I certainly concede that these people would have more authenticity in their assessments of Chavez’s policies as it affected them – but even the conversations that he has on this subject are never deep as he doesn’t know well the history of the country or the language. Besides a few extended asides explaining certain historic events and general assessments – this dramatically undercuts his ability to investigate people’s “Socialist Dreams” within a fractiously divided national context outside of facile stereotypes. Sometime this is a good thing, for instance many outside the country don’t recognize the role racism has in the society so reading,
“If you are white in Venezuela, you are automatically considered higher up the ladder than a nonwhite, but many people will simply be after your money”
is insightful. However, my take away from the totality of encounters was the most people wanted a “free handout” rather than a systemic reconstruction of the hegemonic economic forces such that there was greater opportunity for entrepreneurship and social mobility in the country. Jamie provided some of this context, but the constant ridicule of the embodiments of the state – be they police or park rangers – left me with the impression that he thinks that this is a good goal but impossible given the conditions of the country which easily lends itself to corruption.
All in all I enjoyed the travelogue, though as someone with deep background on Venezuela I found the writing on this to be not really “fitting”. While not likely to pick up his other book about Iran, I do feel pleased for having chanced purchasing and reading this book.
And let’s face it, these are latino people we are talking about, not latinx. Which is the first thing the people read when looking at the article and is something that a vast majority of people don’t use and is likely to make people want to dismiss it – a feeling compounded by the many percentages discussed earlier.
This chart I really love, which really isn’t a surprise because Statista always produces great work.
The story of 
