Frank Bajak

Media Ignore How Maduro's Death Squads Operate with Impunity Thanks to Gun Control
By Tom Blumer | March 30, 2014 | 11:59 PM EDT

Pushed back from the headlines, massive protests against the repressive Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela continue.

So do the killings by the "colectivos." If this group of thugs enforcing Maduoro's Chavista socialist nightmare were instead right-wing paramilitary types, they would long since have been christened "death squads" and garnered international attention. A story about the colectivos finally appeared in the Associated Press today. While the coverage by Fabiola Sanchez and Frank Bajak was mostly measured, it completely ignored the fact the colectivos can operate without fear of armed resistance because of government curbs on purchases, transfers, and public carrying of guns.

AP: 'Venezuela's Health Care System in Collapse'; Will Rest of U.S. Press Report It?
By Tom Blumer | November 6, 2013 | 11:53 AM EST

The Associated Press has published a great but disturbing story. Given the frequent and deserved grief yours truly administers when the wire service lets its readers, listeners, viewers, and subscribing news organizations down, it seems only fair to acknowledge fine work when it does occur. The real question is, in the politically charged U.S. health care environment, whether the AP's subscribers and other media outlets aware of Frank Bajak's Wednesday morning report will acknowledge its existence, and adequately relay the horrors contained therein.

The story is about what's left of Venezuela's "free" healthcare system. It's in shambles. The headline reads like it might be "only" doctors who say so, but Bajak's content says otherwise. Readers here need to go to the full report, because the excerpts which follow of necessity convey only a small portion of how awful things are, including indications that the country is moving ever closer to becoming another Cuba:

As Last Opposition TV Station in Venezuela Is Acquired Under Duress, AP Notices Electoral Disadvantages of Chavistas' Opponents
By Tom Blumer | March 13, 2013 | 9:17 AM EDT

In a mild shock -- mild because it's mentioned before the elections, but probably won't be when it really matters after the polls close -- Frank Bajak and Jorge Rueda at the Associated Press, in a story about how the last opposition TV station in Venezuela is being sold to an insurance magnate who is reportedly "friendly with government," noted the extraordinary handicaps that Venezuela's opposition presidential candidate faces as he attempts to unseat the Chavista successor to the late dictator Hugo Chavez in April's upcoming elections.

Specifically, the pair wrote:

AP: Chavez Procession an 'Epic Farewell to a Larger-than-life Leader' Whose 'Coffin Floated' Over Crowds
By Tom Blumer | March 6, 2013 | 9:19 PM EST

It's as if Associated Press reporter Paul Haven saw colleague Frank Bajak's pathetic obituary of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez earlier today (covered by Matthew Balan at NewsBusters) and said: "Oh yeah? I can outdo you."

That he did, in an execrable report excerpted after the jump which should be saved to the hard drive and shown as evidence that anyone who calls the wire service "the Authoritarian Press" is not at all out of line (bolds are mine):

AP Pays Tribute to 'Master Communicator' and 'Fine Baseball Player' Hugo Chavez
By Matthew Balan | March 5, 2013 | 6:41 PM EST

Frank Bajak of the AP lionized Venezuelan autocrat and "fighter" Hugo Chavez minutes after his death on Tuesday, playing up in the second sentence of his item how the "former paratroop commander and fiery populist...outsmarted his rivals time and again." Bajak later hyped Chavez as a "master communicator and savvy political strategist."

AP Calls Chavez Reelection in Venezuela Result of 'Masterful Political Touch'
By Tom Blumer | October 8, 2012 | 10:08 PM EDT

Earlier today, when I wasn't in a position to save what I was viewing, I came across an Associated Press item about Venezuela's Sunday election results that I knew I would have to find again at the first opportunity. Readers will see why shortly.

Because the AP has a habit of quickly replacing items at its national site while failing to leave the original behind -- especially true when the originals contain embarrassing giveaway sentiments -- I had to look elsewhere for the original story by Frank Bajak and Ian James, and found it at the Lakeland, Florida Ledger. The pair's slavering, slavish coverage of a tyrant's continued consolidation of power, arguably an even worse example of statist-supporting bias than Kyle Drennen cited earlier today at NewsBusters originating from NBC, is almost too much to bear:

AP, NYT Downplay U.S. Role in Chile Mine Rescue; Times Writers Cast Rescue Effort As a 'Political Calculation'
By Tom Blumer | October 13, 2010 | 9:16 AM EDT

Michelle Malkin picked up on this vibe yesterday, and it has become more obvious in the intervening day: The establishment press, or at least parts of it, are downplaying the American exceptionalism -- and the exceptional Americans -- involved in the Chilean mine rescue.

Reports early this morning at the Associated Press and New York Times exemplify the point. Times reporters Alexei Barrionuevo and Simon Romero even chose to deliberately cast the rescue in brazenly cynical political terms.