The U.S. military has bombed at least three Venezuelan boats in international waters in recent weeks, killing all on board. President Trump has said the boats were carrying illegal drugs to the U.S. Our analysts looked at media coverage of the strikes in our Topic of the Week.

The most fact-based and unbiased coverage from our content set came from the Wall Street Journal. In a video on the WSJ YouTube page, Vera Bergengruen explains the rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela as the Trump administration has repeatedly tied drug cartels to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In an executive order, Trump approved labeling drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which, his officials say, allows the U.S. military to use force against suspected drug smugglers. Maduro, meanwhile, has used these military actions to warn that the U.S. is preparing to invade and topple his government. Analysts found the video to be a “mix of fact reporting and analysis,” with a “balanced” bias.

An opinion article from the Washington Post was also found to have a “balanced” bias. Columnist George Will, a conservative, writes that the military strikes on Venezuelan boats is another example of the expanding powers of the U.S. president. He blames both “supine Republicans” and “Democrats’ bad judgment” for this. Will compares these military strikes with the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, calling Trump’s behavior “predictable.” He writes: “… unsurprisingly, there is tepid congressional questioning of the president’s actions as judge, jury and executioner in the waters off Venezuela.” This column was placed in the “opinion” category of reliability.

An article from Breitbart focuses on Maduro’s reaction to the U.S. military strikes, when he announced that he will deploy military officials to neighborhoods to “teach locals how to ‘handle weapons’ in preparation for a supposed incoming United States ‘invasion’ of Venezuela.” The article reports claims and counterclaims between Maduro and Trump. However, analysts found the reporting to show support of Trump’s actions and against Maduro. The article was rated as “analysis” with a “skews right” bias.

Reporting from the New York Post includes announcements by Trump about the military strikes, taken mostly from his social media accounts. Analysts found the coverage to be one-sided, with no effort made to report on criticisms of Trump’s actions, and to contain some uncorroborated details presented as fact. This article was placed in the “opinion or other issues” category of reliability (in this case because of “other issues,” such as reporting only from Trump’s viewpoint and not including comments from the other side) and in the “strong right” category of bias.

The lowest-rated coverage from our content set came from an article by Common Dreams and a video from the Really American YouTube channel. Both were found to be “selective or incomplete/unfair persuasion” with a “hyper-partisan left” bias. 

The Common Dreams article blames other media for not reporting that these military strikes are “illegal and dangerous (and unpopular).” It questions the validity of a Trump administration video showing one of the strikes and repeatedly calls the targeted vessels “fishing boats,” arguing that they shouldn’t be a “legitimate military target.” This article calls the bombing of these boats “an outright criminal massacre” and says the media won’t call these strikes a “war crime” because “they don’t care about defending the truth or holding the powerful accountable–they have no principles to stand on besides profit and access.”

In The Really American video, host Tony Hinderman begins by saying that “dictator Don posted another video of his administration extrajudicially executing some supposed narco terrorists.” He states that Trump admitted the first strike was a “fishing boat” and not a drug boat at all, a claim that our analysts found to be misleading. The video speculates that Trump is violating international or domestic laws, with the host concluding, “It’s clear here that Trump doesn’t respect law. He doesn’t even respect facts and reality.” Analysts noted the use of inflammatory language and insults throughout the video, leading to its “hyper-partisan left” bias rating.

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