Mark Weisbrot :"Eyes Wide Shut: The International Media Looks at Venezuela"

[Judi Lynn]

Eyes Wide Shut: The International Media Looks at Venezuela
Posted August 13, 2007 | 03:31 PM (EST)

Most consumers of the international media will be surprised to find that the controversy over Venezuela's oldest TV station, RCTV, is still raging. We were repeatedly informed that President Hugo Chávez "shut down" the station on May 27th. But in fact the station was never "shut down" - since there is no censorship in Venezuela. Rather, the Venezuelan government decided not to renew the broadcast license that granted RCTV a monopoly over a section of the publicly-owned frequencies.

This is a big distinction, although the U.S. and international press blurred it considerably. Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, noted last month that the "Venezuelan government is empowered to do what it did (non-renewal of the license)" and cited Brazilian President Lula Da Silva's statement that not renewing RCTV's broadcast license was as democratic an act as granting it. Insulza added that "democracy is very much in force in Venezuela."

These comments were not reported in the U.S. or other major media. Nor was Lula's original statement of the same argument. Nor was the statement of Lula's top foreign policy advisor, Marco Aurelio Garcia, who said "there are few countries in the world with as much freedom of the press as in Venezuela."

RCTV has not laid off any of its 3000 employees, and may reach as much as half the population through its cable and satellite operations. But the station is now battling the government again, claiming that it should not be subject to government regulation - including the law, which pre-dates Chávez, that domestic stations carry the president's speeches -- because it is an international station. The government argues that RCTV is a domestic outlet because almost all of its production and audience are in Venezuela.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/eyes-wide-shut-the-inter_b_60256.html