Media War about Venezuela?
By Alek Boyd
30.03.08 | It is hard not to crack up at some headlines. The Associated Press sent out "Dueling Media Forums Set for Venezuela." Dueling, seems to me, to be a bit of a stretch. In one corner we have the Inter American Press Association, with its "membership in excess of 1,300, representing newspapers and magazines from Patagonia to Alaska, with a combined circulation of 43,353,762." In the other, we have Chavez and his media sidekicks, otherwise known as 'Bolivarian Communications Hegemonic Construct,' which according to its creator, fake journalist Andres Izarra, is modeled on Gramsci's "freedom and plural" hegemonic concepts. It is quite obvious that Izarra either does not have a clue about Gramsci's work or he is trying to mislead Venezuela's many gullible ignorants. However it is worth pointing out who these 'dueling' contenders are.
Everyone knows already who IAPA is, even Chavez. But who is the other 'dueling' party? Chavez just couldn't reconcile the fact that Venezuelans much rather favored RCTV's programming over his propagandistic efforts. Mind you, not even in soap operas, with all its intellectually devoid features, could one see a character as the depiction that Chavez, and his sycophants, want to force on audiences: a true revolutionary concept, Gramsci would be proud, a man beyond guilt and sin, a leader incapable of wrongdoing and human error, that is what Bolivarian propagandists want to feed the world. And then they complain, as Izarra recently did, that editorials call his boss a despot, a dictator, a putschist. In a rather futile effort at rewriting history, Bolivarians get all worked when someone calls their messiah a failed coup leader; or when statistics, as verifiable and credible as Cuban ones, are questioned.
So IAPA is meant to be having a 'duel' with a ragtag group of paid apologists. Furthermore, these true believers pretend that rational audiences take their statements at face value, with the same unquestioning, blind faith that characterizes communications in their cult. For let it not be forgotten: Chavez can not err, reality and facts be damned.
In a rather interesting turn of events, the information contained in FARC leader Reyes' laptops is proving a headache, and has got Bolivarians preempting damage control. For them FARC are not terrorists, media is. One has to guess that the true showdown, before world's public opinion, will take place when INTERPOL finishes its assessment on data linking Chavez and Correa, and who knows who else, with terrorism.
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