Private Media and Venezuelan Government to hold Dialogue

[Judi Lynn]

Private Media and Venezuelan Government to hold Dialogue

Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004


By: Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, June 22, 2004—Venezuela’s Vice-President José Vicente Rangel told the media yesterday that the government and the private media would hold talks in order to achieve a greater balance in the media’s reporting and to reduce tensions between the government and the private media.

Rangel said that “a phase of dialogue will begin because among the agreement we signed with the opposition last year, we indicated that an informational equilibrium is very important and the way we enter into an electoral process is an important condition…”

Also yesterday, the Carter Center’s representative in Venezuela, Francisco Diez, confirmed that the government-private media dialogue would be facilitated by the Carter Center. The objective would be to create a climate free of conflict and violence in the time remaining before the August 15 presidential recall referendum.
Diez also told the news agency Reuters that the negotiation expert William Ury would be coming to Venezuela this week to help with the discussions. William Ury is director of Harvard University’s Project on Negotiation, he is the author of several books on negotiation and conflict resolution, and has had experience mediating conflicts in many different parts of the world, such as Sudan and Ethiopia. Ury will first meet separately with the directors of various media outlets and then with the president, to determine an agenda for the discussions.

Ever since Hugo Chavez was first elected as president, Venezuela’s private media have taken a strong oppositional role, going so far as to displace the traditional opposition parties in the political system, according to many political scientists. During the April 2002 coup attempt the four major private television stations took an active role in supporting the failed coup.
(snip/...)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1295

[On the Road]

1. Is There a Public Media?

Just wondering. The press in Venezuela doesn't seem to qualify as an politically independent media. Does Chavez have no supporters with enough money to start a newspaper?

[Judi Lynn]

2. This is the only reference I've seen to anything public media-like there

However, I'm a newcomer to Venezuelan matters, having only started reading during the coup.

This is somewhat interesting, as an international source claimed the Venezuelan government had impounded a tv station's equipment. What was omitted was the fact that the "government" in question was that of the mayor of Caracas, a mortal enemy of Hugo Chavez, who sent HIS people to confiscate the property of the public tv station:

CatiaTV was an experiment in genuine community television. It was started by a group of people in Catia, a vast and extremely poor borough of Caracas, who thought to film one of the community's events to show it to the community. It gave poor people the opportunity to make their own programs, about themselves, for themselves. In April 2002, when the coup against the Chavez government took place, workers in CatiaTV were instrumental in helping to get the state television channel, Channel 8, back online, breaking the monopoly of misinformation of the private television networks and facilitating the reversal of the coup.

Reporters Without Borders (which did protest against the closing of CatiaTV), demonstrating a disappointing lack of understanding of the Venezuelan media situation, said that reporters there were "caught between an authoritarian president and an intolerant media." The private networks are advocates of a coup, call supporters of Chavez 'monkeys', and distort information to a remarkable degree. But the people can't rely solely on the state media. This is exactly what makes community media like CatiaTV so important. It is also why Alfredo Pena shut it down.

Who is Alfredo Pena? The mayor of Greater Caracas was a supporter of Chavez and had been a journalist himself (his email, should you want to write him and tell him to give CatiaTV their transmitter back, is [e-mail]). But his more recent fame has come from his use of the Policia Metropolitana in Caracas.
(snip/....)

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=3993§ionID=45

Pathetic, isn't it? Rightwingnuts have no class whatsoever. They live and breath materialism, property, and will NOT respect the property of others! Ultimately they believe the world belongs to them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. There is 1 state-run TV station

Venezolana de Television.

[AP]

5. It was the only one to have its signal jammed during the coup.

The 7 or 8 private stations kept broadcasting their speculations about Chavez's sanity and lying about who was in control, and who was shooting at whom throughout the coup.

I encourage everyone to see the movie "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

Incidentally, that's a state owned station. What JudiLyn cites in her post is a station which is controled by the people (neither the state nor private corporations).

[On the Road]

6. I Just Tried Searching for a Copy

and surprisingly couldn't find one for sale on the net. You can rent one from Netflix if you're a member, so it apears to be released. I really like to see it before visiting next month.

[Judi Lynn]

7. You're visiting there next month? Fantastic.

Remember you'll have a few DU'ers looking over your shoulder in spirit while you're there! Ha, ha, ha.

What an explosive time to visit, too. Watch out for expensively dressed people carrying wrist rockets!

I've scoured the internet, looking for copies, also. No luck yet. This is one film with a waiting line.

[AP]

3. What's Ury going to do? Mediate down to the level where the media is only

as biased as, say, CNN, Fox or MSNBC?

I hope they have a higher standard for fair media than there is in the home nation of the Carter Center and Harvard University.