Government-backed channel raises concerns about propaganda (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Posted on Mon, Jul. 18, 2005

Government-backed channel raises concerns about propaganda

BY GARY MARX
Chicago Tribune
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/12160243.htm

CARACAS, Venezuela - (KRT) - There were no cameras in place, no anchors
and no frenzied producers pushing to make deadline.

But Aram Aharonian said everything was on schedule as he toured the
partly completed headquarters of a new satellite television station
that sees itself as an alternative to CNN, Fox News and European news
organizations.

"This is a dream, a dream of a lot of people," Aharonian, the station's
general director, shouted above the din of construction workers'
hammering and drilling.

Late this month, Telesur - short for Television of the South - will
begin broadcasting 24 hours a day across Latin America. While the
network's goal is nothing short of changing the way Latin Americans
view themselves and their news, critics say the station could become a
propaganda tool for the region's re-emerging left.

A pugnacious, pony-tailed journalist, Aharonian argues that United
States and other mass media provide a superficial and distorted view of
Latin America.

He said the cameras show up only to cover disasters and beam images
across the region and the world that display ignorance of the
continent's complex realities. It is time, he contends, for Latin
Americans to determine what is news and how it is reported.

"Why do we have to continue seeing ourselves through the eyes of
others?" asked Aharonian, a 59-year-old Uruguayan who has lived in
Caracas since 1986. "Now we are going to begin seeing ourselves through
our own eyes."

Instead of fluffy reports about American pop stars or news pieces on
distant lands, Telesur plans to focus its lens closer to home,
broadcasting weighty documentaries on subjects ranging from the
struggle for indigenous rights in Bolivia to the destruction of the
Amazon rain forest.

One Telesur program will promote tango, vallenato and other Latin sounds
while another regular segment will profile groundbreaking Latin
Americans. "Nojolivud," a program whose name is derived from a phonetic
Spanish spelling of "No Hollywood," will showcase films made outside
what Telesur executives call "the Hollywood system."

But Telesur's news programs are sure to garner the greatest scrutiny.

Although Telesur is a venture involving leftist governments in
Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay, its main benefactor is Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, a populist who derisively refers to the United
States as "The Empire" and blames capitalism for the region's endemic
poverty.

Critics fear Chavez will use Telesur to project his ideas across Latin
America at a time when some media executives and human-rights experts
say Chavez has curbed free speech in his own country.

"Can you imagine Telesur criticizing Mr. Chavez?" asked Alberto Federico
Ravell, executive director of Globovision, a local 24-hour news channel
highly critical of the president. "Chavez wants to become the leader of
Latin America, and this is a project to support him."

Ravell and other critics point to a number of what they see as ominous
signs. For starters, Telesur's headquarters is on the same grounds as
Venezuela's Channel 8, a state-run television station that flatters
Chavez. Telesur's president is Andres Izarra, a veteran journalist who
also is minister of communication and information in the Chavez
government.

Then there is the issue of Cuba, a part owner of Telesur that is
providing the station technical support.

"If the shareholders of this company belong to a government like Cuba
where they have no basic concept of free speech and zero tolerance for
independent views, God help us," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive
director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.

Jorge Botero, a veteran Colombian television producer and Telesur's news
director, acknowledged that Cuba doesn't practice "my ideal of
journalism." He also said he admired Chavez, whom he described as a
"great leader."

"But I am not affiliated with his movement," Botero said. "I am an
independent journalist."

Aharonian said Telesur will have complete editorial independence from
any government and that its only agenda is furthering Latin American
unity. Everything else is fair game.

"If the programming is bad and full of propaganda, then no one is going
to watch it," said Aharonian, who has worked for United Press
International, the Mexican newspaper Excelsior and Prensa Latina, the
Cuban state news agency.

"The only censor is the viewer. They can just click and change the
channel," he said.

Some dispute the notion that Latin America is getting its television
news only from outsiders.

Caroline Rittenberry, a spokeswoman for CNN en Espanol, a 24-hour
Spanish-language news channel reaching more than 15 million households
in the Americas, said the network covers the region in a comprehensive
and sophisticated way.

"We totally reject the notion that just because we are based in the U.S.
we present a U.S. perspective of the news," said Rittenberry. "The
overwhelming majority of editorial staff is from Latin America. We have
correspondents in every country."

The intense debate over a television network that has yet to go on the
air reflects a broader ideological battle over the future of Latin
America. But the new network also is part of a global struggle over how
news is disseminated.

The Internet is challenging the mainstream media's grip on information
in the United States, with bloggers across the political spectrum
assailing what they see as bias in newspapers and on broadcast
networks.

In the Arab world, the satellite news channel Al-Jazeera has been
criticized by U.S. officials who complain that it gives viewers an
inaccurate version of events in the Middle East. Al-Jazeera officials
say they're merely reporting the truth from an Arab perspective.

John Dinges, associate professor at Columbia University's Graduate
School of Journalism, said he did not expect Telesur to toe the middle
line. But he said that did not mean the new network was without merit.

"Generally in Latin America, the fact that a station has a political
point of view does not rule them out of the club of good journalism,"
Dinges said. "I would love to see a successful television channel with
hard-hitting journalism about Latin America."

With a first-year budget of about $10 million, Telesur is opening
bureaus in six Latin American countries and Washington and also will
air material from freelancers across the hemisphere.

So far, the only glimpse of what Telesur might offer is an 11-minute
video aired in May during a signal test. The video shows street
demonstrations by peasants and images of leftist heroes such as former
Chilean socialist President Salvador Allende, killed in a U.S.-backed
coup in 1973. Telesur's look will be different from the high gloss of
American network television. One anchor, Ati Kiwa, is an indigenous
Colombian who will appear on camera in her tribe's traditional dress.

The key to Telesur's success is not going head-to-head against the
giants of broadcasting but providing an alternative to them, Aharonian
said.

"We are losing this (information) battle because we are not doing
anything right now," he said. "We are simply setting up an alternative
to the hegemonic communications industry that has one way of thinking
and one message."

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© 2005, Chicago Tribune.