Journalists jumping ship at Venezuela TV channel

[Zorro]

An exodus of top journalists from Globovision appeared to dim all hope Thursday for preserving editorial independence at what had been Venezuela's last nationally broadcast opposition TV channel.

At least a dozen journalists quit this week, complaining of government censorship, after the channel's best-known on-air personality, Leopoldo Castillo, announced that his signature show, "Hello, Citizen," was being taken off the air.

Castillo was named a news director at Globovision in May when the station's sale was completed to businessmen friendly with the socialist heirs of the late President Hugo Chavez.

The sale was announced before the April 14 presidential election in which Chavez's hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, defeated opposition leader Henrique Capriles by a razor-thin margin. The seller, Guillermo Zuloaga, said state harassment, including fines, had left him no other option.

http://news.yahoo.com/journalists-jumping-ship-venezuela-tv-105704219.html

[COLGATE4]

1. Journalism dies with a whimper. Glory to the

Bolivarian revolution. Simon would be proud.

[joshcryer]

2. Surprised this happened so quick.

Thought it would be a slow burn, to be honest. Once you're "in" you just live with it. But the mass quittings tells me that the censorship is much more in your face than I would've expected.

Then again, when it comes to Venezuela, it's hard to know what to expect.