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The Many Sides of Venezuelan Media (Response to IAPA, E&P)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[Weisbrot responds, via a letter to "Editor & Publisher," to a bizarre
January 2, 2008 piece they published touting the anti-Cuban,
anti-Chavez, anti-socialist Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) and
its determination to hold a meeting in Caracas. The E&P article was
part of an apparently orchestrated dis-informatory self-congratulations
fest in the mainstream press over Chavez's "softer tone" -- all
claiming the results of the December referendum vote had somehow been
some huge defeat for him. You can read it here:
Chavez's "Softer Tone" - Is Opening the Door to IAPA Appeasement?
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20071231/073660.html
NY Transfer]
Venezuelanalysis - Jan 9, 2008
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3046
The Many Sides Of Venezuelan Media:
A Letter to the Editor of Editor & Publisher
by Mark Weisbrot
Today, the media is more diverse because state TV has expanded, and
some of the biggest opposition newspapers (El Universal and El
Nacional) lost some of their market share because their strident
opposition ran up against the government's popularity and success. But
the private media is still solidly partisan, and still has a bigger
share of the overall media than their opponents in the state-run media.
Some have moved closer to a Fox News modus operandi, following some of
the norms of modern journalism while ignoring others. But they are
still a major opposition force.
A private media as exists today in Venezuela would not be tolerated in
the United States, where we have a Federal Communications Commission
and rules that would prevent it. For example, two weeks before the 2004
U.S. Presidential election, the Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland,
which owns the largest chain of TV stations in the U.S., decided to
broadcast a film that accused candidate John Kerry of betraying U.S.
prisoners in Vietnam. Nineteen Democratic senators sent a letter to the
US FCC calling for an investigation, and some made public statements
that Sinclair's broadcast license could be in jeopardy if it carried
through with its plans. Sinclair backed down and did not broadcast the
film.
In Venezuela, the government decided in May 2007 not to renew the
broadcast license of RCTV, the largest TV station. The international
media tried to make this look like an act of censor****p, but in fact
such a station would not get a broadcast license in the U.S. or
probably any democratic country. In addition to its activist role in
the oil strike described above, the station also used faked film
footage during the April 2002 coup to convince people that the
government was murdering people in the streets. This deception played a
major role in the coup, which was reversed when hundreds of thousands
of Venezuelans " not shown on Venezuelan TV -- took to the streets to
defend their democracy.
If the IAPA is concerned about press freedom in the region, they might
want to meet in Colombia, where a journalist recently had to flee the
country after President Alvaro Uribe denounced him and he immediately
received death threats. Colombia has actual death squads that kill
government opponents; Chavez has also criticized journalists, but
nobody has had to flee the country as a result. Of course, Colombia
cannot deny a broadcast license to an opposition TV station, because
there aren't any in that country.
Better yet, the IAPA could set up a non-partisan panel of experts to
compare the state of press freedom and diversity in Venezuela with the
rest of the region. This is what the Carter Center did, in response to
widespread but completely unfounded allegations of electronic fraud in
the August 2004 recall referendum " which the panel investigated and
then dismissed.
An objective study would find that Venezuela's media is among most
oppositional in the hemisphere, without censor****p. Of course the
state-run media is also partisan. It is not a perfect system " I would
prefer objective re****ting on all sides. But the two opposing sides
provide more diversity and choice for the public than prevails
throughout most of the hemisphere (including the United States), where
media oligopolies dominate and sometimes swing elections for the right
- -- as in Mexico and Costa Rica most recently, or Brazil before 2002.
By taking sides in Venezuelan politics, without investigating the facts
of the situation, the IAPA discredits itself as an avowed advocate of
press freedom.
[Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Wa****ngton, D.C. ]
*
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