Once-defiant Venezuelan TV goes quiet amid opposition protests

[Bacchus4.0]

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

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The protests will not be televised.

[rdharma]

1. Do you know who owns Channel NTN24...... and his politics?

Well ..... do you?

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. Does it matter who owns it? Putin owns Russia Today, but they get posted here regularly.

It's what's known as "free" press. Ever hear of it?

[rdharma]

4. It's propaganda piped into Venezuela from Colombia by Uribe's billionaire buddy

.....Carlos Ardila Lülle

[Bacchus4.0]

6. never heard of him. Its not piped into Venezuela anymore. The protests aren't being televised n/t

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. Who gives a shit? The phrase "Freedom of the Press" not mean anything to you? It's....

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]

3. nope, I just know they no longer broadcast in Ven as per Maduro's order n/t

[MADem]

9. The dictator Maduro sure does...and he's brooking NO dissent!

The protests will only be televised when the protesters take over the tee vee station, apparently....

[rdharma]

11. You mean the television station in Bogotá? nt

[MADem]

15. No, but you knew that.

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]

17. No. I didn't know that.

Because that is where the NTN 24 broadcasts to Venezuela originate.

But you knew that, right?

[MADem]

32. Why would protesters need to "take over" a station that supported them?

They need to go here.

You'll figure it out, eventually.

[rdharma]

35. A generic link to Globovision..... really? What article were you trying to link to......

.... to "prove" your point?

Don't you have a direct link to the "takeover" coverage?

[MADem]

36. Apparently it is too difficult for you to process a simple reality.

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]

37. oh, puhlease!

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]

41. Yeah....nothing to see here, move along!

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]

10. I am so glad you will now support the movement to question the use of RT! nt

[rdharma]

18. No. RT is news...... not propaganda.

But thanks for your failed attempt to put words in my mouth.

[msanthrope]

21. Thank you...I could not have revealed you more if I tried. nt

[rdharma]

22. Actually, I think it is YOU "revealing" yourself with such comments. nt

[msanthrope]

23. Putin TV rocks!!! nt

[rdharma]

24. So do Larry King and Thom Hartmann!

http://www.youtube.com/TheBigPictureRT

[msanthrope]

25. Those two has beens? Indeed...the RT report on Pussy Riot today was

one for the ages....

Go defend it....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024529485

[rdharma]

26. Nah! I'm watching the documentary "Kiev: Masks of Revolution now".......

http://rt.com/shows/documentary/kiev-masks-of-revolution-388/

BTW - Are you blaming RT for the actions of the Cossacks? That's a bizarre claim!

[EX500rider]

38. it's what ever news PutinInc wants u to hear..after a little twisting.

[joshcryer]

34. More importantly all the other stations aren't showing the street riots.

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]

5. Well then you should check post #4....

So you know what you're talking about.

[7962]

8. Doesnt matter WHO owns it; no dissent allowed in VZ. As expected

The drop into the sewer will continue for VZ.

[rdharma]

12. I'm sure if the RW's CIA supported coup is successful......

..... 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]

13. Because dissent against Maduro HAS to be right wing, right? Please.

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]

14. So Lopez is not a RW corporatist, eh?

[MADem]

16. I will laugh like hell if Maduro is forcibly replaced by Diosdado Cabello....

....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]

28. He's the Dick Cheney of that pair anyway.

[MADem]

31. They even look a bit alike...!!!!

[EX500rider]

39. yeah marching college students always the 1st thing to look for in a RW coup...lol

[MADem]

43. Don't forget the Chavistas--they're in the streets, too, those poor people who got the cellphones

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]

19. 'The protests will not be televised.' Did you mean the Revolution? Sorry, it was just lying there...

[rdharma]

20. I think they meant "RW coup"........ nt

[SolutionisSolidarity]

27. I guess they don't want to be caught illegally calling for a coup twice in a decade.

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]

29. there was a change in Globovision's ownership

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]

30. the government wasn't going to give them a license for the digital signal

so effectively they would have been shut down

[Zorra]

33. So the Venezuelan media does not validate RW bullshit.

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]

40. "So the Venezuelan media does not validate RW bullshit."

Hows does the news not covering a major riot in the capital with people dead "RW bullshit"?

[MADem]

42. Well, the poor in the street have inquiring minds, too.

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