Leftists Condemn Chavez Shutting TV Station
- Thread starter Toro
- Start date
I didn't call it that, Reuters called it that. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with Reuters.
I'm not saying I like Chavez. In fact, I dislike him. But that's not the issue that we are talking about here, which is his choice to shut down the media. One can be opposed to Chavez, but still not be opposed to one (or more) of his policies (again, keeping in mind the key word: if).
And that has what to do with shutting down a TV station in Venezuela?
EDIT - Would I "lead the charge?" Of course not. But Robertson was an idiot, and I said so at the time. I certainly wouldn't shut his TV network down, though.
-(
Perhaps, but I'm not sure how things work in Venezuela. If it happened in Canada, and the CRTC didn't do anything about it, and Harper took matters into his own hands, I probably wouldn't be overly critical of him for doing so.
You just seem incredilous that such a thing could even happen. Yet it happened right here in North America on two major networks. Would Bush be in the right to close down a network that is anti-Bush and calling for his assasination? And wasn't that don't by American forces during the second gulf war?
I'm no expert on South American politics nor do I support Communism but I know the guy doesn't pull his punches and he is governed under a different set of rules than we capitalist cultured folks accept.
I'm not sure what to think. I'm capable of buying into bad arguments.
But I do know that if only ONE newspaper report does a modicum of investigation, 500 newspapers will simply echo that report and do no cross-checking.
Such is the Media Echo Chamber. It's deceiving to have so many voices and yet no true checks on the facts.
Here's another view:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coup Co-Conspirators as Free-Speech Martyrs
Distorting the Venezuelan media story
May 25, 2007
The story is framed in U.S. news media as a simple matter of censorship: Prominent Venezuelan TV station RCTV is being silenced by the authoritarian government of President Hugo Chávez, who is punishing the station for its political criticism of his government.
According to CNN reporter T.J. Holmes (5/21/07), the issues are easy to understand: RCTV "is going to be shut down, is going to get off the air, because of President Hugo Chávez, not a big fan of it." Dubbing RCTV "a voice of free speech," Holmes explained, "Chavez, in a move that's angered a lot of free-speech groups, is refusing now to renew the license of this television station that has been critical of his government."
Though straighter, a news story by the Associated Press (5/20/07) still maintained the theme that the license denial was based simply on political differences, with reporter Elizabeth Munoz describing RCTV as "a network that has been critical of Chávez."
In a May 14 column, Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl called the action an attempt to silence opponents and more "proof" that Chávez is a "dictator." Wrote Diehl, "Chávez has made clear that his problem with [RCTV owner Marcel] Granier and RCTV is political."
In keeping with the media script that has bad guy Chávez brutishly silencing good guys in the democratic opposition, all these articles skimmed lightly over RCTV's history, the Venezuelan government's explanation for the license denial and the process that led to it.
RCTV and other commercial TV stations were key players in the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chávez's democratically elected government. During the short-lived insurrection, coup leaders took to commercial TV airwaves to thank the networks. "I must thank Venevisión and RCTV," one grateful leader remarked in an appearance captured in the Irish film The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The film documents the networks’ participation in the short-lived coup, in which stations put themselves to service as bulletin boards for the coup—hosting coup leaders, silencing government voices and rallying the opposition to a march on the Presidential Palace that was part of the coup plotters strategy.
On April 11, 2002, the day of the coup, when military and civilian opposition leaders held press conferences calling for Chávez's ouster, RCTV hosted top coup plotter Carlos Ortega, who rallied demonstrators to the march on the presidential palace. On the same day, after the anti-democratic overthrow appeared to have succeeded, another coup leader, Vice-Admiral Victor Ramírez Pérez, told a Venevisión reporter (4/11/02): "We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you."
That commercial TV outlets including RCTV participated in the coup is not at question; even mainstream outlets have acknowledged as much. As reporter Juan Forero, Jackson Diehl's colleague at the Washington Post, explained (1/18/07), "RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests," resulting in the coup, "and, once Chávez was ousted, cheered his removal." The conservative British newspaper the Financial Times reported (5/21/07), "[Venezuelan] officials argue with some justification that RCTV actively supported the 2002 coup attempt against Mr. Chávez."
As FAIR's magazine Extra! argued last November, "Were a similar event to happen in the U.S., and TV journalists and executives were caught conspiring with coup plotters, it’s doubtful they would stay out of jail, let alone be allowed to continue to run television stations, as they have in Venezuela."
When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs—in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves. Regarding RCTV's refusal to cover the return of Chavez to power, Columbia University professor and former NPR editor John Dinges told Marketplace (5/8/07):
What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalistic principles…. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, not because they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles.
The Venezuelan government is basing its denial of license on RCTV's involvement in the 2002 coup, not on the station's criticisms of or political opposition to the government. Many American pundits and some human rights spokespersons have confused the issue by claiming the action is based merely on political differences, failing to note that Venezuela's media, including its commercial broadcasters, are still among the most vigorously dissident on the planet.
When Patrick McElwee of the U.S.-based group Just Foreign Policy interviewed representatives of Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists—all groups that have condemned Venezuela's action in denying RCTV's license renewal—he found that none of the spokespersons thought broadcasters were automatically entitled to license renewals, though none of them thought RCTV's actions in support of the coup should have resulted in the station having its license renewal denied. This led McElwee to wonder, based on the rights groups' arguments, "Could it be that governments like Venezuela have the theoretical right to not to renew a broadcast license, but that no responsible government would ever do it?"
McElwee acknowledged the critics' point that some form of due process should have been involved in the decisions, but explained that laws preexisting Chávez's presidency placed licensing decision with the executive branch, with no real provisions for a hearings process: "Unfortunately, this is what the law, first enacted in 1987, long before Chávez entered the political scene, allows. It charges the executive branch with decisions about license renewal, but does not seem to require any administrative hearing. The law should be changed, but at the current moment when broadcast licenses are up for renewal, it is the prevailing law and thus lays out the framework in which decisions are made."
Government actions weighing on journalism and broadcast licensing deserve strong scrutiny. However, on the central question of whether a government is bound to renew the license of a broadcaster when that broadcaster had been involved in a coup against the democratically elected government, the answer should be clear, as McElwee concludes:
The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3107
But I do know that if only ONE newspaper report does a modicum of investigation, 500 newspapers will simply echo that report and do no cross-checking.
Such is the Media Echo Chamber. It's deceiving to have so many voices and yet no true checks on the facts.
Here's another view:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coup Co-Conspirators as Free-Speech Martyrs
Distorting the Venezuelan media story
May 25, 2007
The story is framed in U.S. news media as a simple matter of censorship: Prominent Venezuelan TV station RCTV is being silenced by the authoritarian government of President Hugo Chávez, who is punishing the station for its political criticism of his government.
According to CNN reporter T.J. Holmes (5/21/07), the issues are easy to understand: RCTV "is going to be shut down, is going to get off the air, because of President Hugo Chávez, not a big fan of it." Dubbing RCTV "a voice of free speech," Holmes explained, "Chavez, in a move that's angered a lot of free-speech groups, is refusing now to renew the license of this television station that has been critical of his government."
Though straighter, a news story by the Associated Press (5/20/07) still maintained the theme that the license denial was based simply on political differences, with reporter Elizabeth Munoz describing RCTV as "a network that has been critical of Chávez."
In a May 14 column, Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl called the action an attempt to silence opponents and more "proof" that Chávez is a "dictator." Wrote Diehl, "Chávez has made clear that his problem with [RCTV owner Marcel] Granier and RCTV is political."
In keeping with the media script that has bad guy Chávez brutishly silencing good guys in the democratic opposition, all these articles skimmed lightly over RCTV's history, the Venezuelan government's explanation for the license denial and the process that led to it.
RCTV and other commercial TV stations were key players in the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chávez's democratically elected government. During the short-lived insurrection, coup leaders took to commercial TV airwaves to thank the networks. "I must thank Venevisión and RCTV," one grateful leader remarked in an appearance captured in the Irish film The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The film documents the networks’ participation in the short-lived coup, in which stations put themselves to service as bulletin boards for the coup—hosting coup leaders, silencing government voices and rallying the opposition to a march on the Presidential Palace that was part of the coup plotters strategy.
On April 11, 2002, the day of the coup, when military and civilian opposition leaders held press conferences calling for Chávez's ouster, RCTV hosted top coup plotter Carlos Ortega, who rallied demonstrators to the march on the presidential palace. On the same day, after the anti-democratic overthrow appeared to have succeeded, another coup leader, Vice-Admiral Victor Ramírez Pérez, told a Venevisión reporter (4/11/02): "We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you."
That commercial TV outlets including RCTV participated in the coup is not at question; even mainstream outlets have acknowledged as much. As reporter Juan Forero, Jackson Diehl's colleague at the Washington Post, explained (1/18/07), "RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests," resulting in the coup, "and, once Chávez was ousted, cheered his removal." The conservative British newspaper the Financial Times reported (5/21/07), "[Venezuelan] officials argue with some justification that RCTV actively supported the 2002 coup attempt against Mr. Chávez."
As FAIR's magazine Extra! argued last November, "Were a similar event to happen in the U.S., and TV journalists and executives were caught conspiring with coup plotters, it’s doubtful they would stay out of jail, let alone be allowed to continue to run television stations, as they have in Venezuela."
When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs—in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves. Regarding RCTV's refusal to cover the return of Chavez to power, Columbia University professor and former NPR editor John Dinges told Marketplace (5/8/07):
What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalistic principles…. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, not because they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles.
The Venezuelan government is basing its denial of license on RCTV's involvement in the 2002 coup, not on the station's criticisms of or political opposition to the government. Many American pundits and some human rights spokespersons have confused the issue by claiming the action is based merely on political differences, failing to note that Venezuela's media, including its commercial broadcasters, are still among the most vigorously dissident on the planet.
When Patrick McElwee of the U.S.-based group Just Foreign Policy interviewed representatives of Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists—all groups that have condemned Venezuela's action in denying RCTV's license renewal—he found that none of the spokespersons thought broadcasters were automatically entitled to license renewals, though none of them thought RCTV's actions in support of the coup should have resulted in the station having its license renewal denied. This led McElwee to wonder, based on the rights groups' arguments, "Could it be that governments like Venezuela have the theoretical right to not to renew a broadcast license, but that no responsible government would ever do it?"
McElwee acknowledged the critics' point that some form of due process should have been involved in the decisions, but explained that laws preexisting Chávez's presidency placed licensing decision with the executive branch, with no real provisions for a hearings process: "Unfortunately, this is what the law, first enacted in 1987, long before Chávez entered the political scene, allows. It charges the executive branch with decisions about license renewal, but does not seem to require any administrative hearing. The law should be changed, but at the current moment when broadcast licenses are up for renewal, it is the prevailing law and thus lays out the framework in which decisions are made."
Government actions weighing on journalism and broadcast licensing deserve strong scrutiny. However, on the central question of whether a government is bound to renew the license of a broadcaster when that broadcaster had been involved in a coup against the democratically elected government, the answer should be clear, as McElwee concludes:
The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3107
Fascist dictator, and good friend of Bush, Musharraf suppresses Pakistani news media:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070604/wl_afp/pakistanjusticemedia_070604165312
quote:
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf handed the country's television and radio watchdog greater powers Monday amid protests against the alleged blocking of three news channels ... Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, who last week warned the media to tone down its coverage of the crisis, was not available for comment ...
Where are the howls of protest from the right wingers??:angryfire:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070604/wl_afp/pakistanjusticemedia_070604165312
quote:
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf handed the country's television and radio watchdog greater powers Monday amid protests against the alleged blocking of three news channels ... Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, who last week warned the media to tone down its coverage of the crisis, was not available for comment ...
Where are the howls of protest from the right wingers??:angryfire:
Hi! I just joined the forum today but I've know about it for months... Just now I noticed that you have a Chavez related thread, so I decided to post.
I'm from Venezuela and I'm one of many that are immigrating to Canada running away of what we are finding here. Chavez is a BIG reason, and sadly he has about 60% fault of venezuelans immigrating :roll:
You can find a lot of people pro-Chavez and a lot more (in my opinion) against Chavez, and beleive it or not a lot of pro-Chavez people are against the RCTV closure, since they didn't coup against Chavez, that's a lie, they just showed what happened that day like all the others media.
I'll tell you some facts that aren't on the news, Chavez has at least 4 TV channels (government channels), and only 3 more national channels were/are private. One of them is/was RCTV and he closed it, another one is Venevision and his owner prohibited the news program to talk about the mobilizations and much more, so you can say that the owner is pro-Chavez and against true. The only other national channel is Globovision and Chavez is attacking that channel everyday, every moment, in fact he said "Globovision, you are next", and about that video with the pope? I watched it, and it just Chavez paranoia :x
I'm from Venezuela and I'm one of many that are immigrating to Canada running away of what we are finding here. Chavez is a BIG reason, and sadly he has about 60% fault of venezuelans immigrating :roll:
You can find a lot of people pro-Chavez and a lot more (in my opinion) against Chavez, and beleive it or not a lot of pro-Chavez people are against the RCTV closure, since they didn't coup against Chavez, that's a lie, they just showed what happened that day like all the others media.
I'll tell you some facts that aren't on the news, Chavez has at least 4 TV channels (government channels), and only 3 more national channels were/are private. One of them is/was RCTV and he closed it, another one is Venevision and his owner prohibited the news program to talk about the mobilizations and much more, so you can say that the owner is pro-Chavez and against true. The only other national channel is Globovision and Chavez is attacking that channel everyday, every moment, in fact he said "Globovision, you are next", and about that video with the pope? I watched it, and it just Chavez paranoia :x
Good to have you aboard, Belldandy. We look forward to your contributions on what is happening in Venezuela. You can educate us a great deal. (Especially gopher, hahaha!)