Venezuela: The people's fight for a fair hearing

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela: The people's fight for a fair hearing
Saturday, March 27, 2010 - 11:00
By Pablo Navarrete

February 4 marked 11 years since Hugo Chavez first assumed the presidency in Venezuela, following a landslide election victory that swept the country's discredited traditional parties out of power. Since then, Chavez has presided over a radical process of reforms that has been the subject of ever increasing levels of demonisation by the corporate-controlled mainstream media.

The English-language media has been no exception — in fact it has been at the forefront of the attempts to systematically smear Venezuelan democracy under Chavez. Right-wing outlets, such as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, regularly refer to Chavez as a dictator, even though there have been 12 national elections during his time as president — most of which received unprecedented levels of scrutiny by international observers and were systematically deemed as free and fair.

More surprising is the position taken towards the Chavez government by media outlets generally viewed as "liberal". For example, the coverage of Venezuela by the British Guardian's Latin America correspondent, Rory Carroll, has been shamefully superficial and misleading. One analysis of Carroll's reporting on Venezuela, published by the left-wing British magazine Red Pepper in September 2008, carefully dissected his anti-Chavez bias.

The BBC has also had its coverage of Venezuela questioned recently. In December 2009, researchers at the University of the West of England published the preliminary findings of a 10-year study.

Of 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008, the researchers found that only three mentioned any of the Chavez government's positive reforms — such as poverty reduction programs that have halved the poverty rate from 46.5% in 1998 to 23% in 2009.

Instead the BBC's reporting has been characterised by insinuations that Chavez lacks electoral support, and even compared Chavez to Hitler in one instance. The research also suggested the BBC has fallen short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy.

It is within this context of media disinformation that I decided to make my new feature-length documentary, Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela.

Filmed in the capital, Caracas, in November 2008, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Chavez's presidency, I wanted the documentary to provide audiences outside Venezuela an alternative narrative to the one offered by the mainstream media.

I thought that in order to better understand the process underway in Venezuela, two things were essential. The first was to move away from simplistic interpretations that focus virtually all developments in Venezuela around the figure of Chavez, and instead provide a platform for the voices of the government's grass-roots supporters.

The mainstream media routinely ignores these people, but they are instrumental in driving the process forward and should be at the centre of the story.

More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/43505

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x551272

[Judi Lynn]

1. Media In Venezuela: Facts and Fiction

Media In Venezuela: Facts and Fiction
Written by Caitlin McNulty and Liz Migliorelli
Monday, 17 August 2009 09:36

When Hugo Chávez won the Venezuelan Presidential election in 1998, he immediately implemented one of his primary campaign platforms, the rewriting of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1961. This new constitution included a broader scope of social, economic, cultural, political and civil rights. A popular referendum was held to elect qualified citizens to make up a Constituent Assembly whose job was to draft the new constitution. This constitution was truly written for the people and by the people. One of the articles in the constitution required the restructuring of the Venezuelan oil industry in order to provide a more equal distribution of resources and wealth to the Venezuelan people. For the economic and political groups who traditionally held power and who had benefited greatly from this oil profit, this shift in structure and fortune was not at all welcome. Since then, this large block of private media (whose ownership belongs to the most powerful businessmen and corporations) has worked toward removing Chávez from power and slowing the revolutionary process.1 Since Chávez won the presidential election and the traditional political parties Acción Democratica and COPEI lost power, the news media has become the greatest weapon of the opposition in a war against the Chávez administration.

~snip~
The Coup d'Etat

Never was corporate media's agenda of destabilizing the Chavez government more transparent than during the 2002 coup attempt against Chávez, which was seen by many as the "first media war in world history".8 Overwhelming public outrage broke out as the majority of Venezuelans who voted Chávez into office saw the democratic process derailed before their very eyes. Their voices, actions, and protests were silenced by the news media in favor of the "inauguration ceremony" of Pedro Carmona, the illegitimate coup-appointed interim President of Venezuela. In response to the government's change of the executive board of Petroleros de Venezuela (PDVSA, Venezuela's oil company) a massive opposition march to the headquarters of PDVSA was promoted by print media, radio and television incessantly. In the days before the coup, instead of regular television programming, Venevisión, RCTV, Globovisión and Televen broadcasted constant anti-Chávez speeches and propaganda calling for viewers to take to the streets. Some ads urged, "Venezuelans, take to the streets on Thursday, April 11 at 10 a.m. Bring your flags. For freedom and democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will defeat us."9 Many propaganda ads were extremely threatening and clearly intended to instigate violence and an overthrow of the Chávez government.

On April 11, 2002, the march that was directed toward the PDVSA headquarters changed route toward the presidential palace, where a group of pro-government supporters were rallying that same day. When sniper gunfire rang out and pro-government supporters began to fall, the Chávez supporters started to shoot back in the direction of the gunfire. RCTV, along with other major news networks, selectively showed footage of Chávez supporters firing guns off of the Puente Llaguno bridge along with a voiceover of "Look at that Chávez supporter…see how he unloads his gun at the peaceful opposition march below."10 They failed to broaden the angle to include the abandoned street below, or include that a mix of two peaceful marches of both Chávez supporters and opposition members had been fired upon by unidentified gunmen, the majority of victims were Chávez supporters, and the men on the bridge were responding to a direct attack. The private media held the Chávez supporters responsible and blamed the Chávez government for arming the aggressors.

Shortly afterwards, a video of objecting high-ranking military officials pronouncing themselves against Chávez's government and requesting his resignation was shown. By projecting these videos over and over again in the mass media, the coup plotters hoped to justify their final goal of kidnapping Chávez and carrying out the coup. The next morning, after Chávez had been taken away but had not resigned, a Venevisión morning program hosted some of the military and civilian coup leaders. The guests on the show thanked the private media channels for their integral role carrying out the coup. As powerful businessman Pedro Carmona became the de-facto president of Venezuela, all the private media owners were present in the palace cheering loudly as the new president dismantled the democratic institutions that Chávez's government had put into place.

There was a complete blackout of information about the coup. The private media intentionally kept breaking news and critical information concealed from the public. On April 11, RCTV received information that Chávez had been kidnapped and was being held in a military prison, but withheld that information from the public, continuing to publicly celebrate his "resignation." During this news blackout caused by the forced closure of the state TV channel, the private media became the primary source of information. Demanding the return of their democratically elected president, Chávez supporters took to the streets on April 13. Instead of reporting these demonstrations and massive mobilizations, the private channels broadcast old movies, cartoons and soap operas. There was a total news blockade; networks prohibited all employees from showing Chavez supporters on screen, forcing those with moral or ethical objections to leave. Venezuelan analyst Eva Gollinger states that;

The intentional censorship was a clear attempt to deny Venezuelan citizens access to true, objective and timely information, violating their constitutional rights and those rights garnered to them under international human rights instruments.11

It wasn't until the protesters won back the state-run television station that Venezuelans began to receive news of what was happening in their country.

Community media played an integral role in combating this widespread media manipulation and blockade, presenting accurate information about the coup and the popular resistance beginning to mobilize in order to derail it. Gregory Wilpert explains;

During the coup, the community media filled the gap which the private mainstream media left when it played and active role in the coup and refused to broadcast the military and popular resistance against the coup government.12

Although the majority of community media stations were broken into, dismantled, and destroyed, a few managed to convey their message beforehand and helped mobilize the masses that eventually managed to reinstate their justly elected president. On one of the most significant days for Venezuelan democracy, the day the democratic process prevailed and Chávez was re-instated as the President of Venezuela, major news stations broadcasted cartoons.13

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2059--media-in-venezuela-facts-and-fiction

[naaman fletcher]

2. from the link:

"For the research, I spoke to Venezuelans from all sectors of society but especially to the government's grassroots supporters and community activists in the barrios (low-income neighbourhoods) that encircle Caracas."

So you spoke to the governments supporters and found out that they support the government? Gee, there's a surprise.

[Wilms]

3. And someone spoke to the opposition. And guess what. They HATE Chavez.

Why? Because Chavez is beholden to the majority. Democracy sucks for the VZ teabaggers.

[naaman fletcher]

4. No doubt,

Bo doubt there are a lot of bad people in VZ who hate Chavez for taking the country away from them. Of course, there are more and more people who are coming to see that Chavez is a thug and can't micromanage the economy as he is now trying to do.

[Wilms]

5. Thug?

Now, now.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Yeah, hey, STOP THAT reporting on what the MAJORITY thinks in Venezuela!

It's about time somebody asked them, naaman fletcher! Cuz the rats who own our news media never, ever, ever, ever, EVER DO THAT!

They're having too much fun with their bogeyman. I'll bet they even have an effigy of Chavez in their corpo-fascist editorial rooms, that they shoot paintballs at, and exercise their manly skills upon, beating up the effigy of all that they loathe about democracy and how, if you let the rabble have transparent elections, the rabble will choose some dictator who dares to dictate to sacred corporate powers and the super-rich. Can't trust 'em with democracy. Punch, punch! Look what it produces! Free universal medical care! Christalmighty! Bang, bang! Splat, splat! Free college educations! Right to the chin, left to the testicles! Big Man Chavez, dictating to Exxon Mobil! Thud! Splat! Suppresser of our free speech! Foot to teeth! Crack!

It would undermine the illusions by which they rob us all blind, and foment the mass murder of war, for them to reveal that that is what they want to do to the people of Venezuela, literally--beat them bloody, throw them out of airplanes, carve them up, alive, and throw their body parts into mass graves--as our paid thugs are doing to the poor in Colombia. So they turn Venezuela's FDR into a punching bag, and metaphorically pummel him for the edification of the sleeping, dreaming, troubled masses.

Thank God somebody has finally figured out what all this is about--the creation of "Chavez the dictator"--and has asked the people who support him--in huge numbers, election after election--what THEY think!

The rightwing media moguls of the "New Deal" era also called FDR a "dictator." Neither did they give a fuck that he was elected. Neither did they report his supporters' views--the views of the vast MAJORITY. And neither did they care for anything but "organized money" and its power.

The story in Venezuela is its PEOPLE--not this media creation, bogeyman Chavez. They ARE the revolution. They created it. They put Chavez in power and kept him there, through a U.S. supported coup attempt, a U.S.-funded recall election and efforts of every kind to overturn their elected government. The story in Venezuela is the success of democracy; the rise of the grass roots; the power of ordinary people. And I am very glad, indeed, that this writer and documentarian, Pablo Navarette, gets it, because almost nobody else does.