Media representation of Hugo Chávez
Encyclopedia
The media representation of Hugo Chávez involves the portrayal of the current President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

, in both the Venezuelan and international media.

Overview

Even before the April 2002 coup, many owners, managers, and commentators working for the five major private mainstream television networks and largest mainstream newspapers had stated their opposition to Chávez's policies. These media outlets have accused the Chávez administration of intimidating their journalists using specially dispatched gangs. Chávez in turn alleges that the owners of these networks have primary allegiance not to Venezuela but to the United States, and that they seek the advancement of neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...

 via corporate propaganda
Propaganda model
The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media...

. Private media's most prominent political commentators have reported that, among other things, Chávez is mentally ill and that he harbors a "sexual obsession with Castro".

According to Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, "[The Venezuelan] media is chronically obsessed with Chávez, and critical in a way that would be completely alien for most US observers." One late Venezuelan journalist, Alberto Garrido, was often quoted in North American press and was considered an expert on the revolutionary theory of Chávez. After the media-backed 2002 coup attempt, Venezuela passed 'social responsibility' legislation regulating the media but has largely declined to enforce it.

Coverage of the 2002 coup

Private media coverage of the 11–14 April coup only exacerbated these tensions.
On 11 April, the anti-government march, the message "remove Chávez", and the call to redirect the march to the presidential palace in Milaflores, were "widely announced, promoted, and covered by private television channels, whose explicit support for the opposition became evident." A steady stream of unpaid ads asked Venezuelans to participate in the insurrection.

In an attempt to keep order, the government invoked Article 192 of the telecommunications law more than thirty times during the days preceding and on the day of the coup. The Article enables the government to coopt regular programming for 15 to 20 minutes to broadcast its own views and position.

The private TV stations circumvented the rule by showing Chávez's addresses and the protest simultaneously, via a split-screen presentation. Chávez then ordered them to be taken off the air in a forced blackout which lasted until several stations started rerouting cable TV signals in order to continue covering the protest. On the first morning after the 2002 coup, many of the new Carmona
Pedro Carmona
Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga is a former Venezuelan trade organization leader who was briefly declared President of Venezuela during an abortive 2002 military coup against Hugo Chávez. He occupied the office of President from April 12 to April 13...

 government's highest-ranking members appeared on-air to offer their appreciation to the private media for their support. Once the counter-coup was launched by Chavistas and loyalist elements of the Palace Guard, these five stations censored any reporting on the events. Private media owners and managers instead chose to broadcast classic films and sitcom reruns.

Later coverage

After RCTV
RCTV
Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional is a Venezuelan cable television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, RCTV Internacional was inaugurated as Radio Caracas Televisión on 15 November...

 lost its terrestrial broadcast licence in 2007, private television media remained opposed to the Chavez government, but in most cases moderated that opposition by presenting more government spokesmen; Globovision
Globovisión
Globovisión is a 24-hour television news network in Venezuela. It broadcasts over-the-air in Caracas, Aragua, Carabobo and Zulia on UHF channel 33. Globovisión is seen in the rest of Venezuela on cable or satellite and worldwide from their website...

 is now perhaps the most vocally and stridently anti-Chavez television station. Globovision was among several private television stations that promoted the two-day coup d'état and management-led oil industry shutdown aimed at ousting President Chávez in 2002 and 2003. Since then Globovision has been investigated over possibilities that it hinted about the assassination of Chavez, and on 29 May 2007, President Chávez claimed during a speech that Globovision had been actively encouraging civil unrest
Civil disorder
Civil disorder, also known as civil unrest or civil strife, is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance caused by a group of people. Civil disturbance is typically a symptom of, and a form of protest against, major socio-political problems;...

 in Venezuela, as well as his assassination. His claim on the latter was based on broadcast footage of the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

 in combination with a song titled "Esto no termina aquí" ("This does not end here"). The Venezuelan Government proceeded to file a complaint against Globovision with the Attorney General Office on this matter. CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 was also criticised by the government for showing pictures of an assassinated Al Qaeda leader alongside images of Chavez.

In , Venezuela's telecommunications regulator launched an investigation into the Globovisión network
Globovisión
Globovisión is a 24-hour television news network in Venezuela. It broadcasts over-the-air in Caracas, Aragua, Carabobo and Zulia on UHF channel 33. Globovisión is seen in the rest of Venezuela on cable or satellite and worldwide from their website...

, after it used an earthquake as an opportunity to attack the government. The government said Globovision was illegally inciting fear and violated the public's right to access critical information in a time of crisis, in particular by claiming that Venezuelan institutions were unaware of the quake and that the only information was available from the US (although in fact the US data had come from Venezuela’s National Seismological Institute). The Director of Globovision, who intervened personally on air, also falsely claimed to have been unable to reach Venezuelan authorities. Chávez demanded sanctions against Globovisión, calling station director Alberto Federico Ravell "a crazy man with a cannon". This action was criticized by two officials who monitor freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

, Frank La Rue of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 and Catalina Botero of the OAS
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

. Globovision was fined $4.1m in 2009, for illegal broadcasting on unauthorized microwaves and unpaid taxes from the years 2002-2003 on political advertising airtime donated by Globovision.
Venezuela still has a wide variety of newspapers and radio stations that are critical of Chavez.

Aló Presidente

Chávez hosts the live talk show Aló Presidente
Aló Presidente
Aló Presidente is a largely unscripted talk show hosted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez which is broadcast on Venezuelan state television and radio stations every Sunday at 11:00 AM...

. Of variable format, the show broadcasts each Sunday on state-owned media
Venezolana de Televisión
Corporación Venezolana de Televisión or VTV is a state-owned television network based in Caracas, Venezuela, which can be seen throughout the country on channel eight...

. The show has been considered the principal link between the Venezuelan government and its citizens, and is a source of information for both official and opposition media and at international level. The show features Chávez addressing topics of the day, taking phone calls from the audience, and touring locations where government social welfare programs are active.

On 11 June 2009 President Chavez inaugurated a "theoretical" edition of his show, in which he wanted to promote "the study, reading and deepening of the revolutionary ideals" in order to strengthen socialism. This program airs on Thursday afternoon.

National System of Public Media

The Venezuelan government has been, since after the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt grown and diversified its media, in order to try to combat the "media terrorism that's committed by the private media". This has been considered by the opposition to Chavez as an attempt to achieve hegemony in the communication in the country.

teleSUR

In 2005, the Venezuelan government announced the joint creation of teleSUR
TeleSUR
La Nueva Televisora del Sur is a pan-Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. TeleSUR was launched with the objective of providing information to promote the integration of Latin America....

 with several other countries. teleSUR is a proposed pan-Latin American news network that seeks to challenge the present "domination" of Latin American television news by U.S.-based CNN en Español
CNN en Español
CNN en Español is CNN's Spanish language news channel. On March 17, 1997, CNN launched CNN en Español, a 24-hour Spanish-language news network for the Hispanic American and United States marketplace.-Mexico programming:...

 and Univisión
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...

.

General

Many have made the accusation that international media coverage of Hugo Chávez, and the Bolivarian Revolution, has severely distorted the reality in Venezuela.

Media outlets in the United States, and in other parts of the world, have consistently suggested that Hugo Chavez is a "dictator" or is "headed in that direction in spite of the fact that he and his party have won numerous national elections certified by international observers, and confirmed by independent international polling companies.

The left-wing media watchdog FAIR
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

 has criticized the New York Times coverage of Chavez' administration, for instance for its 25 February 2007 article titled "Venezuela Spending on Arms Soars to World’s Top Ranks" . FAIR
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

 media watchdog reported that the article did not indicate that the source of this claim came from the USAID governmental organization (which has been accused of being involved in the 2002 failed coup against Chavez ). Furthermore, it stated that
"The article also used a confusing and highly misleading measure of arms expenditures. When it uses the phrase "Venezuela's arms spending," it does not mean the amount Venezuela spends on arms, but the amount that it spends buying arms from other countries. If one is interested in the military threat posed by a particular country, its total spending on its military is a more relevant statistic... In Latin America, according to figures compiled by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Argentina spends almost twice as much on its military as Venezuela, Colombia spends more than three times as much, and Brazil spends about 12 times as much... The United States, as the world's biggest military power, has a military budget roughly 500 times the size of Venezuela. None of this crucial context made it into Romero
Simon Romero
Simon Romero is an American journalist who has been the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times since November 2011, based in Rio Janeiro. In this assignment, he covers Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Romero was previously the paper's Andean bureau chief, based in Caracas,...

's piece, though the article does note, in the 19th of 26 paragraphs, that Brazil's army is far larger than Venezuela's... But the article may be inaccurate as well as misleading...
The Times' numbers on Venezuelan military spending don't seem to add up... "


On 13 March 2007 the Ontario Press Council upheld a complaint that a series of articles published in the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

 in May 2006 lacked balance due to the absence of comment from Venezuelan government representatives and did not attribute figures about murder rate, poverty and unemployment to opposition sources.

RCTV licence

In 2006, President Chávez announced that the terrestrial broadcast license
Broadcast license
A broadcast license or broadcast license is a specific type of spectrum license that grants the licensee the privilege to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses are generally straddled with additional restrictions that...

 for RCTV
RCTV
Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional is a Venezuelan cable television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, RCTV Internacional was inaugurated as Radio Caracas Televisión on 15 November...

—Venezuela's second largest TV channel—would not be renewed. The channel's terrestrial broadcasts ended on 28 May 2007 and were replaced with a state network. RCTV
RCTV
Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional is a Venezuelan cable television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, RCTV Internacional was inaugurated as Radio Caracas Televisión on 15 November...

 is accused of supporting the coup against Chávez in April 2002, and the oil strike in 2002-2003. Also, it has been accused by the government of violating the Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television. The director of the station, Marcel Granier, denies taking part in the coup. RCTV is still broadcasting via cable and satellite and is widely viewable in Venezuela.
This action has been condemned by a multitude of international organizations. However, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...

 (FAIR) questioned whether, in the event a television station openly supported and collaborated with coup leaders, the station in question would not be subject to even more serious consequences in the United States or any other Western nation. In a poll conducted by Datanalisis, almost 70 percent of Venezuelans polled opposed the shut-down, but most cited the loss of their favorite soap operas rather than concerns about limits on freedom of expression.

In May 2007, international media coverage of the events surrounding the RCTV
RCTV
Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional is a Venezuelan cable television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, RCTV Internacional was inaugurated as Radio Caracas Televisión on 15 November...

's licence revocation almost universally reported it as a "shut down" or "closure" of an "independent" voice, when, in fact, RCTV was only revoked of its licence and equipment to broadcast on national airwaves but continues to broadcast by cable and satellite. The events were given wide coverage in the international media, arguably creating the image that there was widespread chaos and unrest in the country, when most of the protests only took place in the major cities. Many media outlets in the United States portrayed the government decision to not renew the broadcast license as a "dictatorial" act that was "muzzling opposition voices" and "attacking the media." Fox News in the United States gave especially distorted coverage of the events, claiming that Hugo Chavez had "shut down the media all across the country" when in reality RCTV was the only channel to lose its broadcast license. Many other opposition media outlets continue to operate in Venezuela, including the major newspapers and TV channels, making up the clear majority of the Venezuelan media.

In subsequent international coverage of Venezuelan media, the RCTV licence episode is sometimes presented accurately, at other times mischaracterised as above - for example AFP
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...

declared in June 2009 that "The government refused to renew RCTV's license in May 2007 because of its critical news coverage."

Constitutional reform

In December 2007, Venezuela held a national vote on a proposed constitutional reform that would have made a large number of changes to the Venezuelan political structure. Among the proposed changes was extending the term limits to three. A change that would have allowed Hugo Chávez to run for reelection for the third time in 2012 when his current term ends. While there are many countries in the world that do not have term limits for national leaders including the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Germany, and others, the constitutional reform in Venezuela was widely reported in international media as a change that would "make Chavez president for life." (though most of these are parliamentary democracies rather than a presidential democracy, like Venezuela). Media outlets called the reform a "power grab" on the part of Chávez, and presented the image of a country "heading toward dictatorship,"

On 3 December 2007, the reform was voted down, and the proposed changes were not made to the Venezuelan constitution. International media reported that Chávez had accepted the results "grudgingly" and only after pressure from the high military command. Military commanders immediately released statements denying that Chávez had been pressured to accept the results.

External links

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