In fact, RCTV is an outright propaganda and mobilising machine for the anti-Chavez opposition, completely abusing its privilege as a television broadcaster. While people are accustomed to bias in their newspapers they expect a certain level of balance from television news. Instead, RCTV puts out an unending stream of hate propaganda aimed at removing the Chavez government despite the fact that the government has the overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people as shown in every election in the last 9 years. To this end, RCTV has notched up 652 violations of Venezuela’s Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television.

For RCTV to be accusing the Venezuela government of dictatorial action against it is the height of hypocrisy. Let’s remember that this was one of the main TV channels that helped to organise the military overthrow of the Chavez government in April 2002. At the time, RCTV supported the short-lived Carmona regime as it removed and imprisoned elected President Chavez, dissolved the democratically elected National Assembly, suspended the Constitution and the Supreme Court. In any other country this would have been more than enough for the channel to have been permanently taken off the air.

Not satisfied with this, RCTV then went on to play a bizarre role in the employer’s lockout that started in December 2002 - the channel suspended normal programming and offered its airtime to the opposition for the 64 days of the lockout. Is that the action of a normal television channel? Obviously not.

In fact, the Chavez government has been exceptionally tolerant in its treatment of the press. Venezuela is one of the freest countries in the world. The right of freedom of expression is strongly guaranteed in Chavez’s constitution of 1999. Media is not censored. Journalists are not fined or imprisoned. This despite the fact that many journalists and media channels have been receiving massive amounts of money from the US government as part of its seven year campaign to distort the truth, destabilise and overthrow Chavez.

The real democratic deficit in the Venezuela media is the glaring contradiction between the massive majority of Venezuelan people who support the Chavez revolution and the overwhelming majority of the media who oppose it. Even after the non-renewal of RCTV’s terrestrial licence, 79 out of Venezuela’s 81 television stations will remain privately owned along with 94% of radio stations and 98% of newspapers. Indeed RCTV will still be able to pour out its vitriolic attacks through cable and satellite.

What explains this drastic contrast between public support for Chavez and the media opposition? Quite simply that the Venezuelan media is owned by a few rich men who despise the actions being taken by the Chavez government to share the wealth of the country with all Venezuelans rather than just with the elite who have monopolised it since Simon Bolivar’s time.

A Continuing Problem
The non-renewal of RCTV’s licence has not ended Venezuela’s problem with its media. As we have seen in recent weeks, GloboVision, one of the other big TV channels, has been inciting violence against the government, even publicising calls for Chavez to be assassinated.

The government would be justified in not renewing the licences of the other channels which are constantly breaking Article 58 of the constitution which states: “Everyone has the right to timely, truthful and impartial information” and that citizens have “the right to reply and corrections when they are directly affected by inaccurate or offensive information”.   

However, closing more channels would just add fuel to the fire of Chavez’s enemies without solving the fundamental lack of democracy in the media. 

A Program for Democracy in the Venezuelan Media
The Venezuelan media needs to be held accountable by its people. Not by more control from this or a future government, but through popular democratic control carried out in a totally transparent and democratic manner. The following is one way that this could be done:

Media Accountability Commission
A Media Accountability Commission (MAC) would need to be made up of democratically appointed and recallable representatives from all sectors of society including media organisations and their audiences. Among other things, the role of this Commission would be to follow the relevant clauses of the constitution and the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television in order to protect citizens from:

When a complaint is made against a programme or printed item a MAC sub-committee would check it and ask for initial responses from the publisher. Once it is established that the complaint is substantive it would be brought before the full Commission and discussed. These discussions would be televised and broadcast live.

When a complaint is upheld, an appropriate penalty would be enforced varying from a public apology to a fine; or to loss of signal for an agreed period of time. Repetition of an offence would lead to escalating penalties. The ultimate penalty of course being withdrawal of the licence.

The offender would have to carry the detailed account of the discussion of the complaint supplied by the Commission. In the case of TV and radio stations this would include a requirement to broadcast the discussion at the same programming time as the original offence was committed. In the case of loss of signal the apology and discussion would be repeatedly replayed in place of the normal broadcast. In this way audiences would fully understand why the penalties were being imposed and be more vigilant against similar offences.

Looking to the Future
In the past, the spectrum allocation for TV and radio in Venezuela has been based on money not fair representation. Fortunately, we are fast moving into a new broadcasting era where analogue broadcasting will be quickly replaced by digital terrestrial TV. The new digital bandwidth will allow 3 times as many channels to be broadcast. This will provide the Media Accountability Commission with a great opportunity to dramatically increase diversity in Venezuelan broadcasting.

But the fundamental problem still remains - why should a few rich people control the media?

There is a lot of talk in the world especially by the US government, about the right to ‘free and fair elections’. But for democracy to work, first there must be ‘free and fair debate’. How can a process be democratic if only the rich and the powerful have the means to communicate their views, while the vast majority are voiceless?

Apart from the State TV service, and the new TVes channel replacing RCTV, only rich people in Venezuela have the means by which to publish mass circulation newspapers or magazines, own radio and television stations, make and distribute films, advertise etc. Ownership of these media formats is dominated by a few individuals and corporations who operate increasingly on an international scale. They use their media power to shape and manipulate public opinion, and try to intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Equal access to publication, broadcasting and election airtime is the democratic right of every citizen in Venezuela. But how to put this into practice? This is a vital issue that demands wide discussion in Venezuela and throughout the world.

By Patrick Byrne (pat@democracyunlimited.org)