Once-defiant Venezuelan TV goes quiet amid opposition protests
Source: Reuters
- Twelve years after they played a key role in a coup, Venezuelan television networks have so heavily scaled back their coverage of anti-government protests that critics are decrying a "media blackout" that helps the government cling to power.
Stations that openly encouraged Venezuelans to take to the streets in 2002 and helped trigger the coup that briefly ousted socialist leader Hugo Chavez are now offering minimal real-time coverage of nearly a week of anti-government protests.
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When security forces arrested opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez on Tuesday, bringing tens of thousands of supporters into the streets to block the path of the vehicle carrying him, networks that for years covered every twist and turn of Venezuelan politics offered almost no live coverage.
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But he drew criticism from press freedom groups including Reporters Without Borders by ordering a Colombia-based news channel NTN24 to be removed from cable signal after it broadcast live coverage of violence that started last Wednesday.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/venezuela-protests-media-idUSL2N0LJ0VF20140219
The protests will not be televised.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)Well ..... do you?
Tarheel_Dem
(31,250 posts)It's what's known as "free" press. Ever hear of it?
rdharma
(6,057 posts).....Carlos Ardila Lülle
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)Tarheel_Dem
(31,250 posts)awfully ironic to hear people who are always spouting the constitution take this position on the 4th estate. We've got Al Jazeera, BBC, and Putin's own government funded Russia Today, which is openly hostile to the US government, and especially this president. Would you like Obama to shut 'em down?
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)The protests will only be televised when the protesters take over the tee vee station, apparently....
rdharma
(6,057 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)You're going to have to try a bit harder to "defend" censorship.
IOKIYAMTD* is that it?
*It's OK if you are Maduro, The Dictator
rdharma
(6,057 posts)Because that is where the NTN 24 broadcasts to Venezuela originate.
But you knew that, right?
rdharma
(6,057 posts).... to "prove" your point?
Don't you have a direct link to the "takeover" coverage?
MADem
(135,425 posts)You "take over" the TV stations that are IN YOUR area--not outlets that are miles away in another country. You replace the newsreaders with your own people who broadcast their POV, not the censored one of the government--that IS how it works; have you seen no films of this sort of thing, ever?
The clueless affectation doesn't charm, you know.
Alternatively, they could take over the cable switching office, and "release the kraken" so that people don't have to resort to low bandwidth and YOUTUBE and TWITTER to see what is going on in their own country.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)Cable connection from Colombia shut off. No license for propaganda granted in Venezuela.
Don't worry! They can still get Fox News and NTN24 on satellite!
MADem
(135,425 posts)You might want to open a newspaper every once in a blue moon.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/venezuelas-poor-protests-chavez-revolution
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)rdharma
(6,057 posts)But thanks for your failed attempt to put words in my mouth.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)rdharma
(6,057 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)rdharma
(6,057 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)one for the ages....
Go defend it....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024529485
rdharma
(6,057 posts)BTW - Are you blaming RT for the actions of the Cossacks? That's a bizarre claim!
EX500rider
(10,885 posts)joshcryer
(62,287 posts)And the people are going to look to the chavistas and ask "why didn't you show this?"
People are going to die tonight just because they don't know what's happening and they'll go outside to see what is going on and dead.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)So you know what you're talking about.
7962
(11,841 posts)The drop into the sewer will continue for VZ.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)..... the RW dictator will be much more tolerant of dissent.
Strange that there is so much support for a RW coup here on DU. Very strange, indeed!
7962
(11,841 posts)I just hate to see a beautiful country go down the drain. Chavez-lite, et al, will ruin the country in another decade if they're not stopped.
rdharma
(6,057 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)....and I will laugh even harder at the sputtering of the Maduro champions when they realize that "God Given Hair" was a better friend to Hugo than the bus driver ever was.
7962
(11,841 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)EX500rider
(10,885 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)and make-work jobs...they're sick of the crap, too!
So--I guess "the poor" are right wingers, according to some people living in an alternate reality, here!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/venezuelas-poor-protests-chavez-revolution
Venezuela's poor join protests as turmoil grips Chávez's revolution
Apparently they aren't buying the "It's Uncle Sam's Fault" bullshit, either!
freshwest
(53,661 posts)rdharma
(6,057 posts)SolutionisSolidarity
(606 posts)These stations should have been shut down in 2002. No Western government tolerates open sedition, but leftist governments get held to special rules. The authoritarians shitheels posting here can booster every act of rebellion against democratically elected governments and try to pass themselves off as freedom fighters, but those of us who were following the first coup won't be fooled.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)Probably the previous owner got tired of being harassed and threatened with his life by Chavez and saw the same with Maduro coming to power.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)so effectively they would have been shut down
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Is that so wrong?
IMO, it would be awesome if the media in the US would do the same.
But it can't...because it it is almost completely owned by the RW 1%.
EX500rider
(10,885 posts)Hows does the news not covering a major riot in the capital with people dead "RW bullshit"?
MADem
(135,425 posts)You're behind the bush in the rose garden, I'm afraid. This isn't a "right wing" thing.
This is a "fucked up failed government' thing....and the Chavistas are in the streets, too, screaming because Maduro is an idiot and inflation is at sixty percent.
Ooops. Where's the reset button?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/venezuelas-poor-protests-chavez-revolution