All Latin America, All the Time --(Telesur (Chavez) makes the MSM)

[Say_What]

<clips>

..."We need to see a point of view that comes from South America, not from Europe or the United States," said Aram Aharonian, director of Telesur, a network based in Venezuela that hopes to launch in May. "Why can't we have our own point of view?"

Both Telesur and TV Brasil, based here in the Brazilian capital, are government-funded projects. They are products of a philosophy that is spreading throughout South America, fueled by governments that seek more economic and cultural independence from Europe and the United States.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is helping guide the creation of Telesur, has long pressed for alternative sources of information that can compete with such networks as CNN and the BBC. In recent months, the project has received pledges of financial and technical support from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and other neighbors.

The leaders of those countries might not speak with the fiery flair of Chavez -- a populist politician who is Latin America's most vocal critic of the United States -- but each has indicated reluctance to surrender to the ebbs and flows of free market forces generated in wealthy, first-world countries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21849-2005Mar9.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is going to drive some people here around the bend.

CNN has worked closely with Venezuelan "opposition-"owned media, and has fed us our Venezuela news as crafted by their own spinners, rather than real journalists, with CNN's blessings.

That's one reason we've been so totally clueless about Latin American events unless we use foreign sources.

If they get organized, they can make a HUGE impact. So cool.

Edit:

<snips>The idea of a united bloc of South American nations has long been imagined but never attained. One of the hopes driving both networks, organizers said, is that they might help achieve more unity among the region's nations, with an eye to developing the same kind of collective clout wielded by members of the European Union.

"We are at the beginning of something very new," said Eugenio Bucci, president of Radiobras, a public media company in Brazil that is helping coordinate the project. "But what is new is not just this television project, but an overall process of integration among the countries of South America."

At TV Brasil, executives hope to form partnerships with existing channels in the region, and they will travel to neighboring countries this spring to work out the details. Both they and Telesur executives say they will not be rivals, but rather partners with a common goal of showing the world through Latin American eyes.

In a boardroom here last week, a group of media executives watched videotape from TV Brasil's first test broadcast, transmitted via satellite in January from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. The tape provided what they called a good preview of what the station might be like -- a mix of newscasts and public television-style cultural programming and documentaries.
<snip>

[Say_What]

2. We know that Bush pal Gustavo Cisneros won't like it one damned bit

The good thing is that 'muriKans might find out where Latin America is... ;-)