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| Latin America |
| Venezuelan News Outlets Line Up With the Foes of Chávez |
| 2002-12-22 |
| When government opponents convene marches as part of their strike to force President Hugo Chávez from power, the coverage is ample on Globovisión, the privately owned 24-hour news network. Coverage of the protests, complete with the commentary of anti-Chávez analysts, is broadcast for hours on end. Strike organizers are given nightly time slots for rambling speeches, charging Mr. Chávez with everything from repression to terrorism to looting the central bank. Government officials are given few opportunities to rebut the anti-Chávez invective. The bias toward the opposition is also striking at the other private broadcast stations and major newspapers, like El Universal and El Nacional, which dominate news coverage in this country. The situation worries some analysts and journalists, who see it distorting the role of the press and aggravating the current political crisis. The government is demanding that the news outlets moderate their tone as part of negotiations for an electoral solution to the standoff between Mr. Chávez and his opponents, who are continuing a prolonged national workers' strike aimed at forcing Mr. Chávez to resign. Not being a journalist, I should probably have no opinion in the "neutrality" argument, but... I have to wonder if the Times would be hooting this loudly if the situation were reversed. If the networks and the papers were playing up what a fine fellow Hugo is, would they take that as a reflection of support for him? Has the Times done a critical examination of the Iraqi press's adulation of Sammy? Or have they merely taken the fact that the press is owned and operated by the Tikrit Mafia as a part of the natural order of things? A free press can be a thorn in the side of lots of people — look at al-Jazeera, which manages to cheese off everybody in sight at one time or another. The alternative is Babil, JANA, Arab News, Okaz, and all the other mouthpiece presses around the world. Thankfully, that's a shrinking number. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |