In early 2016,Venezuela's authorities had very difficult problems to solve. Namely, 1) the neoliberal opposition had won the legislative elections of 2015 and controlled the National Assembly, 2) the price of oil, the main export of Venezuela, had fallen to its lowest point in decades, and 3) US President Barack Obama had signed an executive order that declared Venezuela to be an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the US national security and foreign policy".
That is, in three decisive areas (political, economic and geopolitical), the Bolivarian revolution seemed to be playing defensively. Meanwhile, the counter-revolution, both internal and external, seemed to have power at its fingertips.
Furthermore, Chavism had been under media attack since Hugo Chávez had arrived to power in 1999. The negative propaganda had intensified since April 2013 and reached unseen levels of violence after the election of President Nicolás Maduro.
This permanent aggression by the media created and propagated such a level of disinformation about Venezuela that it even confused many friends of the Bolivarian revolution. In particular because, in this "post-truth era", lies, intellectual fraud and deceit aren't sanctioned with any sort of negative consequence, not even in terms of credibility or image.
Anything goes, everything that's useful to achieve an end is valid in this era of post-factual relativism, and sometimes not even the most objective facts or pieces of data are enough to disprove false statements. Denounces against this strategy are ridiculed by media as "conspiracy theories", and an obsolete element of an "old narrative" that has no basis.
Comment: The Geneva convention on Cyprus is starting: Cyprus peace talks underway to reunify the island prior to conference