On Media Bias in Venezuela [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 by The Americas Blog / CEPR

On Media Bias in Venezuela

by Mark Weisbrot

Everywhere you look, there are people who are taking seriously the claim that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has a big media advantage over the opposition in the upcoming elections. The Committee to Protect Journalists, in their latest report (PDF) on Venezuela, states that “a vast state media presence echoes the government’s positions,” and refers to the government as having a “media empire.”

From the Wilson Center’s latest report (PDF), we read: “Media coverage is not even moderately balanced. . . . In television, the government’s predominance is overwhelming; it was estimated that by 2007 it controlled seven national television channels and 35 open community channels."

These statements are false and misleading, but they are adopted uncritically in almost all mainstream media coverage. In fact, state TV had about 5.9 percent of the audience that watches television in Venezuela in 2009-2010. These data were gathered by AGB Panamericana de Venezuela Medición S.A., a local affiliate of Nielsen Media Research International, and are probably as reliable as Nielsen ratings in the United States. The data were collected through equipment boxes placed in each home, measuring minutes of each channel watched. A representative sample of 1000 households was constructed and data were gathered over ten years.

Thus, the above statements are similar to claiming that PBS TV, the public TV in the U.S., dominates broadcast TV in the United States. Most of the major newspapers (e.g., El Nacional, El Universal) are also strongly against the government. According to CONATEL data, only about 14 percent of radio is publicly owned; and since there is more strongly anti-government radio in Venezuela than TV, the opposition almost certainly has more advantage in radio than in other media.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/03-16