Home - SR Editions - Socialist Resistance No.46

Media in Venezuela: from mythology to liberation

Dan Jakopovich

Free socialism is based on respect for and strengthening of the widest democratic freedoms, and freedom of thought and expression are elementary democratic rights. From that libertarian socialist point of view I will attempt to deliver my own critical analysis of Chavez’s recent refusal to renew the licence of a private television company Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) for using the public airwaves, but also a critique of the position from which this decision was attacked in the corporate media around the world.

Lies and selectivity in the mass media

Lies and selectivity characterise the capitalist media’s reports regarding the Left in Venezuela, and the approach to these current events certainly does not deviate from the usual practice. It is important to make a few things clear.

Firstly, it is useful to know that RCTV is not an “independent” media (let alone “the voice of the people”), but is actually a private television channel owned by a billionaire oligarch Marcel Granier. RCTV and Marcel Granier are not fighting for the “freedom of the people”; they are defending conservative interests and privileges of a few RCTV owners and tycoons.

Secondly, it is important to note that, in spite of what the mainstream media maintains, Chavez did not “outlaw” RCTV, but has only denied to renew the concession of this private television for using the TV frequency which is a public good, and is by Constitution (written long before the left came to power) under the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the Venezuelan government. The decision not to renew the permit of the private capitalists for using this public good does not stop RCTV from continuing to broadcast their programme on cable or satellite television. Chavez did not close any radio or television station.

Thirdly, why was the RCTV permit to use a public TV frequency denied? Certainly not simply because of its “critical stance towards the government” or “the support for oppositional candidates” as the BBC lied (for example, Human Rights Watch has concluded in their report Venezuela’s Political Crisis, Human Rights News, October 9, 2002 that "Far from providing fair and accurate reporting, the media by and large seek to provoke popular discontent and outrage in support of the hard-line opposition"). RCTV went far beyond that, openly breaking the Venezuelan Constitution and the “Law of Social Responsibility for Radio and Television”.

Against the law and against the Constitution, RCTV called for political violence and public disturbances. It called on the public to bear arms and attack the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez.

RCTV had announced that Chavez resigned (while he was actually abducted by the insurgents). Do the mass media have a right to knowingly lie to the people? When millions of Venezuelans took to the streets, helping to defeat the coup and reinstate Chavez as president, RCTV refused to broadcast this, just like it refused to inform the public that the coup had failed and broadcasted only cartoons instead! Aside from taking part in a coup against a democratically elected government in April 2002, RCTV also actively encouraged economic sabotage, which, according to a number of sources, cost the country $10-11 billion (a sum of $14 billion had also been suggested). All this had helped bring Venezuela to the brink of a civil war, and had opened a way for a possible American military intervention as well. What country would allow a private television station that had participated in a coup to continue broadcasting its programme on a public frequency after the coup had failed? In Venezuela , one such station continued doing so for an additional five years. Marcel Granier was not arrested or even accused of treason, a charge which would very probably have been raised in UK and US for the same activities. Hypocrisy is the quintessential virtue of the bourgeoisie.

Private or public?

The state in Venezuela certainly does not have total control over the media. In Venezuela, as the official June 2006 report of the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information states, the vast majority of the Venezuelan mass media (TV and radio channels, as well as newspapers) are privately owned. 90% of the TV market is in the hands of 4 private TV companies: RCTV, Televen, Globovision and Venevision. 79 from the total of 81 TV channels (97%) are private property. 706 from 709 (99%) radio stations are private, and all 118 newspapers are private. Marcel Granier owns 40 other TV channels throughout Venezuela (mostly local). The stockholders of Empresas 1BC (the company which owns RCTV) reflect a “dense tangle of blood and wealth” (George Ciccariello-Maher, Zero Hour for Venezuela’s RCTV, Monthly Review Zine), linking Granier through intertwined dinastic ties with the owners of other leading private media corporations. Apart from RCTV, the largest TV channel Venevision, whose main stockholder is Gustavo Cisneros, one of the richest men on the planet according to Forbes, is also fiercely opposed to the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez. Globovision, one of the 4 strongest TV companies, is particularly critical towards the government. Even Washington Post published an article which states:

"[f]ree expression is exercised in Venezuela. Another influential television station, Globovision, lambastes the Chávez government frequently, and Caracas boasts a range of newspapers, many of them with an anti-government bent. ...” (Juan Ferero, Pulling the Plug on Anti-Chavez TV, Washington Post, January 18, 2007)

All this tells a lot about the alleged media “control” by Chavez. Pitiful is a democracy where “public discussion” and thought is manufactured by a handful of media moguls.

State or public?

Still, we shouldn’t fool ourselves. Opinion polls indicate that the RCTV question has split the Chavez support base. The majority of the population generally supports Chavez, but this was an unpopular decision, as it might had been expected (and not just because RCTV brought widely watched soap-operas and sexually provocative material). Internal and international damage caused by the non-renewal of licence to RCTV could cost far more than the presumed benefits. The resolution of the 12th World Congress of the Fourth International “Dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist democracy”, written in 1985 by the distinguished Marxist theorist Ernest Mandel, might be somewhat instructive here. It particularly highlights the necessity of preserving the widest democratic freedoms and pluralism in the course of the development of a new society, and warns of the negative consequences of stifling those liberties. Socialism heralds an expansion and deepening of democratic freedoms, not their reduction. Even from a purely pragmatic angle, repression over the human rights of capitalists (which of course doesn’t include their privileges) seems to bring more damage than benefit to the revolution. For Mandel, a moderate exception in terms of media control can be made in situations of open war or physical hostilities, when the capitalists constitute a direct anti-democratic physical threat to the new order, and stricter methods are needed. It is obvious, however, that Chavez took this measure from a position of power and relative security.

A more radical democratisation of the media is needed, with more initiatives for establishing and developing participatory-democratic and community-run media. The National Association of Free and Alternative Community Media (ANMCLA) demands the expropriation of the private media magnates of their transmitters and equipment, and the establishment of direct-democratic control of the population over the new TV channel. The capitalists should have the right to free expression, but they do not have the moral right to hold special privileges because of their wealth. Similarly, it is necessary to transcend the privileged position of the administrative apparatus, which should serve the people.

The struggle against state control on all levels in the Venezuelan society, including the media, is a critical issue for the future of the Venezuelan experiment. This demand for the socialisation of media is particularly interesting and important. It is necessary to establish direct-democratic control of the population over the media programme, largely through non-privileged, easily and quickly recallable delegates directly responsible to the masses and derived from the self-managing workers’ and communal councils.

Democratic free-thinking, as the reflection of a truly democratic praxis, represents the harshest blow against the manipulative capitalist industry of consciousness. As the pioneers of true democracy in ANMCLA say: “The freedom of expression is the expression of freedom, not the voice of privilege.”