The Scandal of the Media & the Caracas Coup Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit The Media Scandal Surrounding the Caracas Coup by Jose G. Perez jgperez@netzero.net The AP story below "Venezuela Government to Probe Media" is complete and total bullshit. It doesn't take too much reading between the lines to see that even the AP reporter forced to write this story *knows* it is bullshit. And moreover, I'm *certain* the AP tops know it. I know because it is a *scandal* in journalistic circles that the Venezuelan (bourgeois) media didn't just pull the plug on ALL reporting of the revolutionary upsurge that smashed the coup to smithereens, but even tried to convince, cajole and pressure the international news organizations that were doing at least some reporting of what was going on, to black out the coverage. [The Venezuelan state-run TV channel, of course, was out of commission, at the orders of the Benedict Arnolds who held the upper hand momentarily.] What explains the blackout? The orders for it came from the top, and not because of concern about safety, but as the HEAD of one of the Venezuelan news organizations you see referred to in the press is reported to have put it (privately, of course): because we have just gotten rid of that madman and you're going to ruin it. The people involved in the privately-owned Venezuelan media, especially at the top, did everything they could to get international news organizations to suspend their coverage of pro-Chávez statements and protests as the crisis came to a head, because the information that was coming back into the country made the Venezuelan private media's blackout not only ineffective, but damning for those who carried it out. The fact is that the Venezuelan "news" organizations long ago dropped any pretense of the objectivity or impartiality. That would be fine if they OPENLY proclaimed their role as advocates for the rich and the Americans, and if OUR side, the side of the working people, ALSO got to have our advocacy journalists have prime-time newscasts and newspapers whose distribution reaches every nook and cranny of the country. But the reality is that the people who run most of Venezuela's news media want to have it both ways. They want to be treated as the "fair" and "impartial" press that just reports so people can decide. AND they want to be free to be the press officers for the coup. It won't work. You can't have it both ways. These media organizations, under the command of their bosses, were as much a part of the coup operation as the traitorous generals or the would-be "civilian" puppet dictator. And THAT is how they should be treated. Moreover, the "defence" presented by media chiefs like Globovision's Alberto Ravell is an unmitigated *slander* against journalists in general, and, without doubt, against countless individual journalists working for Globovision and other private Venezuelan outlets in particular. Journalists are NOT cowards. Globovision and every other olutlet in Venezuela *could* have covered the growing pro-Chavez uprising on that Saturday. No one need have risked their lives foolishly or irresponsibly. Due to an excess of caution, perhaps the coverage might have been less immediate and compelling than the typical journalist would strive for. But the basic outline of the situation as it was developing would have come across. The *bosses* of the TV stations *chose* to broadcast tennis matches and baseball games instead, and gag their journalists, ordering them to go home. And when they saw that news of what was going on was leaking in from the outside, from international news organizations, they sought to shut that down also. The explanation for the complete domestic press blackout on Saturday is not to be found in the supposed cowardice of journalists, but elsewhere, in the smoke filled rooms where bosses --including media bosses-- meet with generals, and in the antiseptic offices of banks, where the payoffs are deposited. PS: A word or two more needs to be said about the litany of "attacks" on "freedom of the press" relayed by the AP. THIS has consisted of things like, someone throwing a firecracker or a rock at some building's plate glass window. And hot-headed rhetoric like someone saying that such-and-such a paper's lying editorial or news story on such and such a date was SO outrageous they were going to burn all the copies of it. But, the intesting thing here is, there's no mention of editorials not allowed to be printed or programs not allowed to be aired. In particular, there's no mention that the *MOST POPULAR* radio show in Venezuela was driven off the air for months by government diktat. That show (it's back now) is called, "Aló Presidente." Every week President Chávez runs and on-the-air town meeting, where anyone who can get to a telephone can ask him questions, demand to know why the road in front of their house hasn't been fixed, or anything else. Now it just so happens that a couple of years ago, Chávez was running for President AGAIN. (The bourgeois press never mentions this, that he was re-elected to the presidency in 2000. That's because it sounds much better to say that although he did win in 1998, since then his popularity has dropped.) And his competitors complained to the electoral council. They said it wasn't FAIR that ONE candidate got to have a weekly radio show all of his own. The council agreed. Chávez got booted off the air. In vain did Chávez argue that he wasn't just a candidate but the president, and in addition to running his election campaign, he had to run the country, and the radio show was central to that job. He got booted off the air, and even even an appeal to the Supreme Court did not succeed in getting "Aló Presidente" reinstated. The *people* with their votes did that. And this has to do with the complaint about censorship that IS in the AP report. It is very confusing as laid out there. But the essence of it is this: Like just about every other country I can think of, Venezuela considers the airwaves a *public* resource, and licenses are granted to private concerns on condition that they follow certain rules. One of them is that when the president decides he has something to say of concern to the nation, the broadcasters *must* carry it. Week before that, as the counterrevolutionary conspiracy was unfolding, President Chávez addressed the people of Venezuela not once, but several times. On the face of it, his decision to do so doesn't seem abnormal or bizarre. The nation --and, remember, events proved him right-- was under threat of a conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected government by force and violence at the behest of a foreign power. If he could defuse the plot by jawboning, before there was bloodshed and civil strife, he was *duty bound* by his high office to do so. And so not once, but several times he spoke to the people of Venezuela as their president. And the people of Venezuela, acting through their duly-constituted authorities temporarily took back control of THEIR airwaves so that the president's message on the situation facing the country could be heard. THIS is what is being presented as "censorship." That for several days, instead of having control of what people heard and saw 24 hours a day, for one or two hours the bourgeois owners of radio and TV stations were *prevented* from broadcasting their lies and seditious, lying propaganda. * Associated Press - April 18, 2002 Venezuela Government to Probe Media CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's news media say fear of attacks by President Hugo Chavez's armed supporters stopped them from covering the protests that led to his dramatic return. Much of the media were roundly criticized for meticulously reporting the events leading to the coup that ousted Chavez Friday -- then underreporting or ignoring the popular rebellion that restored him on Sunday. Some commentators admitted an anti-Chavez bias in the media. But media managers, used to years of harassment by Chavez supporters, also said coverage was weak because they did not believe the pro-Chavez demonstrations were safe for reporters. One photographer had already been shot in the face and killed during protests earlier in the week. On Wednesday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists listed a string of attacks on media between Chavez's ouster early Friday and his return to power on Sunday. Supporters smashed the windows of Radio Caracas Television with stones and surrounded Globovision and Venevision, the group said. Radio Caracas Television evacuated most of its workers, as did the El Nacional and El Universal newspapers. They and most other newspapers did not publish on Sunday for fear of attacks. ``We remain deeply concerned for the safety of Venezuelan journalists,'' Ann Cooper, the executive director of the group, said in a written statement. Chavez's leftist government, despite new appeals for reconciliation, announced two investigations into the media's conduct during last week's events. Jesse Chacon, president of Venezuela's telecommunications agency, is heading one of them. Chacon had previously drafted media regulations that were condemned by the Inter-American Press Association as an attack on press freedoms. Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, demanded Wednesday that Chavez find a way ``to guarantee that journalists can work without fear, without intimidation.'' While many media in recent months had appeared to openly side with Chavez's opposition, some insisted Chavez had placed them in an untenable position. They said Chavez had repeatedly abused a law to interrupt regular programming, using it to vent personal attacks against individual reporters and news media owners. He took over the airwaves last Monday and Tuesday, broadcasting dozens of messages urging Venezuelans not to join a general strike against his government. On Tuesday, newspapers joined the general strike that eventually led to Chavez's overthrow. During Thursday's protests, Chavez apparently retaliated by shutting down television stations and keeping live coverage of the bloody opposition demonstrations off the air. During the melee, Jorge Tortoza, a 45-year-old photographer for Caracas' Diario 2001 newspaper, was shot in the face and killed. The president's supporters, known as ``Chavistas,'' have been accused of repeatedly harassing Venezuelan reporters. A bomb damaged the offices of Asi Es La Noticia newspaper earlier this year. Two prominent reporters received multiple death threats. Chavistas blockaded El Nacional newspaper about the same time, threatening journalists. At least one publisher in eastern Venezuela reported that Chavistas were threatening to burn newsstands that sold his paper. After Chavez's reinstatement, several journalists went into hiding or left the country, saying they feared for their lives. Antagonism between Venzuelan media and the government had been building for some time. With the disintegration of Venezuela's traditional political parties in the 1990s, a vacuum developed, and the media found themselves the only ones checking government conduct and reporting abuses, said Eleazar Diaz Rangel, editor of the newspaper Ultimas Noticias. But some media also hosted meetings of anti-Chavez forces in recent months. Diaz Rangel said the editorial policies of some news outlets ``were very corrupt, and with a very heavy anti-government position.'' Globovision television director Alberto Ravell apologized to viewers for failing to broadcast Saturday's pro-Chavez protests. But he, along with other media managers, said it wasn't safe for reporters. In a conciliatory news conference on Monday, Chavez urged his supporters to let journalists do their jobs -- ``It's all over, and anyway they aren't to blame for anything,'' he said -- with the caveat that ``they should be conscious of the responsibility they have to their family, to their conscience, to ethics.'' ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsa-04.21.02-04:07:29-20665