Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are two US-funded media outlets that have credibility around the world. They have that credibility because they have been around for decades, they have provided legitimate news that other stations would not, and although they have a clear editorial bias, they do their best to distinguish between editorial and straight news.
Radio Marti, while a little more on the propaganda side than the other two, has provided news for Cubans whenever the signal has not been jammed and has provided an important alternate source for news for those on the island.
But do we need Radio Marti for Venezuela?
The proposal is talking about funding a huge amount of new programming directed at only one country, it's going to take years to build up physical infrastructure and credibility among Venezuelans, and the Venezuelan media, while somewhat censored, often criticize Chavez and are nowhere near the level of censorship in Cuba. Worse, the US proposal is simply boosting Chavez's ego by making him more important than he is. It's also distracting from more credible critics like the Venezuelan Catholic Church or Sumate.
On a side note, the Radio Marti proposal is on the front page of both El Universal and El Nacional in Venezuela.
Here's an alternate proposal: let's do more with VOA. Voice of America (in Spanish) is broadcast via shortwave into not just Venezuela, but all Latin America. It provides a US perspective on events, it already has some credibility, and it is not seen as targeting any particular country or leader. And if you go to the front page of their website today, it has an interview with Venezuela's cardinal, so it is accomplishing the same thing that a Radio Marti would do without all the extra funds being proposed.
Although the Venezuelan ambassador was only talking sarcastically, we really should try to get VOA broadcasts on more than shortwave. We should form partnerships with local radio stations in several countries so that people can listen to it in their cars and at work. This is an underutilized tool and could really serve the hemisphere well by providing one more media outlet people can turn to. Yet, throughout the past decade, VOA and RFE/RL funds were under threat of being cut, often by the same opportunistic politicians that now call for funding of a station dedicated to one pseudo-dictator because it plays well in their constituency.
This Radio Marti (Venezuela) idea is a political scam drawing attention and funding away from the real issues the US faces in Latin America. The truth is, to accomplish its goals everything we need is already in place. Let's use the tools we have and improve their capabilities.
9 comments:
Couldn't agree more, Boz. Nicely put.
Great idea.
VOA & BBC Wold Service are also great ways to keep informed when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
Does VOA have some credibility in Latin America? In Venezuela?
:>))
Please, if you have any influence ask them to broadcast that Chávez is the best possible political leader in the world. Soon after VOA starts telling that, Chávez will be in his lowest level of popularity ever.
Keep attacking him, and he will be reach 99% of popularity.
Respectfully disagree, Boz. I know too much about how VOA works. The biggest problem is VOA's correspondent Carmen Gentile, who is one of the worst reporters in the press pool. In his last filing from Lima, Peru, he wrote a story trying to imply to us that Hugo Chavez was popularly elected as leader of the Andes. He added some lies about Chavez having good relations with ALL the nations of the Americas except the U.S. All I can say is he doesn't have any sources inside these governments and never reads the news. Or else is trying to falsely paint Hugo Chavez as better than he is. Fact is: most governments of Latin America hate him and fear him. He tried to crush two of their economies in the last two years. I went to Chavez's own propaganda site at Venezuelanalysis and learned that, contrary to Carmen Gentile's claims, Chavez got the Andean presidency as a matter of rotation, not popularity. It's pretty bad when I have to go to the CHAVISTA Web sites for the facts. That isn't all. Carmen Gentile, while at UPI, wrote the most horrible lies about Venezuela's savaged opposition in the terrible wake of the recall referendum, claiming they deserved their fate and printing the worst slander about an honorable man I know - in a piece so bad it was picked up by another Chavez propaganda organ full of antisemitic lunatics called VHeadline. It's pretty darn bad if your ravings are picked up as solid news by a Chavista propaganda Web site. VOA desperately needs to exercise some editorial and personnel control. And all I can say is: THAT'S NOT ALL I KNOW!
AMyL,
There are going to be bad reporters at nearly any station. VOA does more good than harm in the world, even if they make mistakes. And I would hope VOA would correct any reporting that implied Chavez won the presidency rather than started his turn as the rotating president.
The fact is, even if you think VOA has a few poor reporters, it would be more efficient to fix VOA than it would be to create a completely new station based solely around taking down Chavez.
"Fact is: most governments of Latin America hate him and fear him." Absolutely agreed on that, and I wish it was a story that got out there more. The media too often paints a monolith left in Latin America, when the fact is Lula, Kirchner, Lagos, and other leftists are damn tired of Chavez. He's not leftist, he's a populist thug. Big difference.
Boz - By and large I do agree. But the problems in that agency are major. Carmen isn't the only bad reporter - the foreign language services are completely penetrated. But even a new network might not necessarily stop this from happening again. Still, Radio Free Europe, TV Marti and Radio Liberty were generally successes in a way VOA was not.
Carmen Gentile has never reported from Lima. And as for his alleged Chavez bias, I know firsthand that he reported on opposition meetings and quoted numerous opposition leaders while covering the referendum.
Carmen Gentile reports for the US GOVERNMENT funded VOA. It is illegal for the VOA to report within US borders because of domestic propaganda laws. He was one of the worst reporters during the 2004 coup time period in Haiti. He echoed a lot of the lies put forward by propaganda artists like Michael Deibert. The type of news stories Gentile and others were putting out covered up the mass violence against the poor in Haiti by the interim government and the US marines.
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