Martin Henry

"The new Venezuelan Televisora Social (TEVES) today inundated Venezuela's Channel 2 spectrum to initiate a new stage in the Latin American media panorama.

"With its initial broadcast early this morning, TEVES eclipsed the image of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), the channel that exploited that frequency for 53 years for the exclusive benefit of the family and economic group that owns it.

"Thus the patient work of the Venezuelan government in its struggle for the democratisation of the media in this South American country was consecrated.

"RCTV went off the air at the point when its license for radioelectronic space expired, given that it was not renewed by the authorities in order to facilitate the launch of a public service station like TEVES.

"That also marked an important battle in the war that the Government of Venezuela - and other countries in the region - are developing in a growing sense against the extraordinary power attained by the economic sector via the so-called media dictatorship."

That was the voice of the Cuban Granma International out of Caracas on Monday [May 28], rising in clumsy propagandistic homiletics to the defence of Friend Chavez. Cuba, of course, has no non-state media.

Cozy friendships

It is not certain which other countries in the region Granma is referring to. Guyana, perhaps? Certainly not Jamaica our government enjoys cozy friendships with the anti-free media Venezuela and Cuba.

Meanwhile Al Jazeera, the voice of Arab pride and resistance and itself a non-state independent operator with massive multi-national audiences, was reporting that Venezuela's oldest private television station has been taken off the air as thousands banged on pots and pans in protest against their president's decision not to renew the channel's licence.

Polls have indicated that 70-80 per cent of Venezuelans, including Chavez supporters, oppose the closure of RCTV. Thousands participated in protests across the country and protesters faced police water cannons in the capital Caracas, while Chavez supporters held a huge, night-to-dawn public party outside RCTV studios to celebrate the birth of the new station, Al Jazeera reported.

Venezuela's supreme court ruled that RCTV must temporarily leave its equipment and broadcast infrastructure in military hands to ensure that the new state station, which Chavez has dubbed 'socialist television', can provide quality service.

RCTV, which airs popular programmes and variety shows, the Al Jazeera report points out, has one of the largest audiences in Venezuela. It is also one of the few stations with national broadcast capabilities.

If only Granma and Al Jazeera could operate freely in the same country. But not in Cuba, and increasingly not in Venezuela, busy buying CARICOM friendship with black gold. El Nacional, Venezuela's Gleaner, in a front-page editorial said RCTV's shutdown marked "the end of pluralism" in Venezuela and the Government's growing "information monopoly".

Every media sin

RCTV has committed every media sin, real and imagined, from broadcasting vulgar trash to backing the Venezuelan Opposition and allegedly backing a coup against Chavez, who is himself a coupist. No charges were ever brought against the TV station in the country's courts now authorizing the expropriation of its equipment. Granma, in typical communist style, said the station was legitimately closed for "disloyal practices".

Just days before Chavez pulled the plug on RCTV, newspapers in Jamaica published a full-page advertisement and editorials protesting the "Attack on Press Freedom in Guyana". President Bharrat Jagdeo's government has pulled state advertisements from the Stabroek News newspaper which is critical of the Government. "Freedom is indivisible," the papers trumpeted, "and a threat to any newspaper in the region is a threat to all."

The Gleaner would be recalling the Manley March against it on September 13, 1976; and we should not forget, ensuring that "next time!' does not happen. We must hope that TV does not fall outside the concern of the protesting newspapers and that Venezuela does not fall outside their vision of the 'region'.

Press freedom, of course, comes with press responsibility. And in democracies there is always a delicate balance of power between the Fourth Estate and the others, requiring a fair measure of mutual respect and uneasy collaboration, something which no side should forget.