The Role of Television in Venezuelan Politics.

This is an interesting news article I ran across. The road trip report is being written, and revised, so please be patient. I also have my recent trip to Angel Falls to report on, another trip to Colonia Tovar, Greg's visit, my rock band, and an upcomming fishing trip. I have been busy.

Financial Times FT.com

Venezuela’s Televised Revolution

By Benedict Mander

Published: August 7 2008 21:01 Last updated: August 7 2008 21:01
At 11am on Sundays, Venezuelans turn on their television sets to watch the most loved and hated programme in the country. Its charismatic but controversial host holds forth about politics for hours – his record exceeds eight – preaching and philosophising, telling personal anecdotes and giving history lessons. He cracks jokes at one moment and flies into a rage at another, and rails aggressively at his enemies as often as he tenderly caresses small children and old women.
The host is none other than Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president (pictured right), and his weekly chat show Aló Presidente (Hello President) on the main state channel, Venezolana de Television (VTV), is often the most important political event of the week. Not only is it Chávez’s tool for educating and informing the populace about the progress and aims of his so-called Bolivarian revolution (named after the 19th-century independence hero Simón Bolívar), and lecturing on the evils of capitalism and imperialism (read: the US). It is also an innovative form of government, where significant announcements are made and public policy explained, as cabinet ministers diligently take notes in the audience. Ministers are fired and scolded, companies nationalised, farms expropriated, hospitals and factories inaugurated. On TV Chávez even ordered tank battalions to the border with Colombia, leaving some fearing war.
Aló Presidente is Chávez’s direct line to the people, and the show rarely takes place in a television studio. No, Chávez and his team travel the length and breadth of the country, setting up a dais and presidential desk anywhere they will fit – on a beach, at the top of a mountain, in the shadow of a giant oil refinery or in the middle of a field with cows grazing in the background. Adoring subjects from nearby villages come to cheer their president and perhaps even get one of his generously distributed embraces.
But Chávez’s show is only one example of the use of TV for political ends. Another is the notorious "cadena", which all channels on the public airwaves are obliged to show:it consists mainly of presidential speeches, which can last several hours. There have been more than 1,600 since Chávez has been president, adding up to more than 1,000 hours of airtime.
In the past 10 years, the politicisation of the media – or the "mediatisation" of politics – has been remarkable. In fact, Chávez owes his initial rise to fame to a brief appearance on television. After a failed coup d’état in 1992 he was allowed to announce his defeat to the nation on "cadena" and urge his fellow insurrectionists to throw down their arms. The formerly unheard-of Chávez became a hero. He was democratically elected as president in 1998.
But it was not until he was on the receiving end of a coup in 2002 that the full power and potential of television became clear to him. Opposition-controlled private TV channels were accused of biased coverage and encouraging the coup, and even engineering a news black-out when it became clear there was widespread popular rejection of the coup, showing classic movies and cartoons instead.
Ever since then, Venezuela’s bombastic president has made a concerted effort to challenge the private media by setting up multiple media outlets to promote his self-styled socialist revolution. From just one state television channel before 2002 there are now six, gaining its latest addition when the government refused to renew the concession for one of the country’s most popular channels, RCTV, largely because of its alleged involvement in the 2002 coup. It was replaced with the state-funded TVes (which as pronounced in Spanish means "you see yourself"). Another includes the continent-wide Telesur, a 24-hour news channel set up to challenge the US-centric news on CNN.
According to Marcelino Bisbal, who teaches communications at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, these public TV channels have become instruments of the government. Ina recent study of VTV, he found that news items (intended basically to inform on the government’s achievements, he says), official or party propaganda and publicity and presidential speeches made up more than 80 per cent of programming.
"It is used to further the aims of the president’s political project, and cannot be called a public service channel," says Mr Bisbal. Indeed, three high- profile prime-time presenters have recently been elected to the 14-person directorate of the government’s United Socialist party of Venezuela. Two of them are running for pivotal positions in the all-important regional elections in November, one as mayor of the capital city Caracas, another as gov- ernor of the state that contains Vene- zuela’s third-largest city, Valencia.
While there is little doubt that the state channels are highly politicised, the private TV channels, which have a far greater viewership, have traditionally hardly been free of bias – and this is the government’s main justification for the way it uses state channels. But news coverage on private channels has improved markedly. Of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse", as Chávez once described the four main private TV stations, one has since been removed from the public airwaves (RCTV), and two have significantly toned down their coverage since the 2002 coup and are now considered to be fairly balanced. Only the 24-hour news channel Globovision remains openly critical of the government – but unlike the other channels its concession is not up for renewal any time soon.
The contrast between private and state media is perhaps the most striking aspect of Venezuelan TV, evidence of how deeply polarised society has become: those in favour of the revolution, and those against it. At any given moment, while on a private channel you may find a game show or soap opera, on state TV it is more probable someone – if not the president himself – will be expounding enthusiastically on the virtues of the revolution. Certainly, in Venezuela, the revolution is being televised.
This article is part of a series on TV around the world. For earlier pieces, visit www.ft.com/arts/tv
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008