AlterNet
Reading the commercial press, one would think Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez became a dictator this week with the passage of an "enabling law" that allows him to issue executive orders over some key areas of public policy. According to the Times of London, "Fresh from a visit to Cuba and Fidel Castro, his closest ally and mentor" -- you've got to work that in somehow -- "President Hugo Ch�vez today assumed near dictatorial power in Venezuela." The Miami Herald's headline screamed "Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree," the Washington Post made the dubious -- and unsubstantiated -- claim that masses of Venezuelans, "filled with despair at President Hugo Ch�vez's growing power," are fleeing the country en masse and Investor's Business Daily warned us, simply, that "A Dictatorship Rises." Pretty much par for the course when it comes to coverage of Venezuela -- -- the international press declared Jihad on Chavez long ago.
There is one notable exception here from Chron.com - Houston Chronicle. I will archive this article for fear it will simply disappear as many have over the past few years.
Alarm bells are sounding in Washington, on Wall Street and around the world over President Hugo Chavez's latest moves to consolidate his Bolivarian Revolution in oil-rich Venezuela. He is — we are told — shutting down a television station, creating a single-party state, nationalizing key industries including some major oil projects, threatening perpetual re-election and vowing to impose "21st century socialism."
On the surface, it seems to Chavez's critics that he is finally doing what they have long predicted — creating a totalitarian state in the image of his mentor, Fidel Castro. But the situation in Venezuela is a little more complex than what many in the media and the establishment make it out to be. Take, for example, Chavez's decision not to renew the license of RCTV television network when it expires in May.
At first blush, this would certainly seem to be reason for alarm — a government shutting down a television station because it doesn't like its editorial bent. But RCTV is not exactly your average television station. In April 2002, it promoted and participated in a coup against Chavez in which a democratically elected president was overthrown by military rebels and disappeared for two days until large street protests and a counter-coup returned him to power.
For two days prior to the coup, RCTV suspended all regular programming and commercials and ran blanket coverage of a general strike aimed at ousting Chavez. Then it ran nonstop ads encouraging people to attend a massive anti-Chavez march on April 11, 2002, and provided wall-to-wall coverage of the event itself with nary a pro-Chavez voice in sight.
When the protest ended in violence and military rebels overthrew the president, RCTV, along with other networks, imposed a news blackout banning all coverage of pro-Chavez demonstrators in the streets demanding his return. Andres Izarra, a news director at RCTV, was given the order by superiors: zero chavismo en pantalla, no Chavistas on the screen. He quit in disgust and later joined the Chavez government.
On April 13, 2002, after the coup-installed President Pedro Carmona eliminated the Supreme Court and the National Assembly and nullified the Constitution, media barons, including RCTV's main owner, Marcel Granier, met with Carmona in the presidential palace and, according to reports, pledged their support to his regime. While the streets of Caracas literally burned with rage over Chavez's ouster, the television networks ran Hollywood movies like Pretty Woman.
Venezuela's media, owned largely by the country's wealthy elites, are arguably the most rabidly antigovernment media in the world. In the past, opposition figures have appeared on television openly calling for a coup against Chavez, who says he is leading a revolution on behalf of Venezuela's majority poor.
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