Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Venezuela and RCTV
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has been the subject of many controversies. His critics often accuse him of laying the groundwork for dictatorship, despite the democratic credentials of his government. Chávez was democratically elected in 1998 and again in 2000 under a new constitution. He then won a recall election in 2004, which was certified by observers from the Carter Center and the Organization of American States. Chávez was re-elected last December by 63 percent of voters, a result again certified by international observers including the OAS and the European Union. Chávez has pledged to accelerate policies that have given poor Venezuelans vastly increased access to health care, education, and subsidized food, and in the last three and a half years of political stability, a remarkable 40 percent increase in the economy.
Throughout this process of increasing voter and citizen participation and electoral democracy, the Venezuelan opposition and their allies in the U.S. press have told us that authoritarianism was just around the corner. They now say it has arrived. The immediate focus of their concern is the president’s decision not to renew the broadcast license of a major television network that is openly opposed to the Chávez government. Their free speech concerns have been echoed by Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. On the other hand, the vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Freedom Commission, ruling out a resolution on the issue, has said the non-renewal has nothing to do with human rights.
Here are the basic facts. Rádio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) is one of the biggest television networks in Venezuela. It airs news and entertainment programs. It is also openly opposed to the government, including by supporting a military coup that briefly ousted Chávez in 2002. (More information available on what Le Monde Diplomatique has called Venezuela’s “hate media” here and here.) During the oil strike of 2002-2003, the station repeatedly called upon its viewers to come out into the street and help topple the government. As part of its continuing political campaign against the government, the station has also used false allegations, sometimes with gruesome and violent imagery, to convince its viewers that the government was responsible for such crimes as murders where there was no evidence of government involvement.
According to a law enacted in 1987, the licenses given to RCTV and other stations to use the public airwaves expire on May 27. President Chávez has publicly declared that RCTV’s license will not be renewed, citing its involvement in the coup. Although it will not be able to continue to use the public broadcast frequencies, the station will still be able to send its signal out over cable, satellite, and the Internet.
The U.S. media, much of which has been unsuccessfully predicting dictatorship under Chávez for years, has used this case to make accusations of censorship and the end of press freedom in Venezuela.
To understand the issue better, I decided to talk to the human rights and press freedom groups who have criticized the action.
José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch clarified for me that “broadcasting companies in any country in the world, especially in democratic countries, are not entitled to renewal of their licenses. The lack of renewal of the contract, per se, is not a free speech issue. Just per se.” A free speech issue arises if the non-renewal is to punish a certain editorial line.
Still, Benoît Hervieu of Reporters Without Borders in Paris said that, while he could not be certain, he thought US and European governments would stop short of non-renewal despite RCTV’s “support for the coup.”
“I think that there would be pressure to make a replacement at the head of the channel. But I don’t think that they would not renew the concession. There is a risk in that story. There are 3000 employees at RCTV. So I don’t think that even in a country like [the United States or France], a government would risk putting 3000 people in the streets,” he said.
Could it be that governments like Venezuela have the theoretical right not to renew a broadcast license, but that no responsible government would ever do it? In the United States, this may seem plausible, since broadcast licenses here seem to be forever. (Who could imagine life without ABC, CBS, or NBC?) Still, the government sometimes takes actions in other parts of the economy that result in a company going out of business.
Actually, in other democratic countries, broadcast companies sometimes do not get their licenses renewed. For example, in Britain in 1992, in a process based in part on a subjective assessment of “quality of service,” Thames Television lost its license after 24 years of service. Several British commentators speculated that the Thatcher government had influenced the result.
So democracies do occasionally find reasons not to renew a license. So what about this case in particular: Would RCTV have had its license renewed in the United States or Europe?
While the two US-based human rights advocates I spoke with declined to answer that question directly, they acknowledged that non-renewal would not be out of the question here.
Vivanco said, “I don’t know. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could decide that they’re not going to renew, for instance, Fox News or MSNBC because they’re in violation of the contract, according to the conditions of the contract. Normally you settle those things in court.”
Carlos Lauría of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) spoke similarly: “I don’t think you can translate what’s going on there [in Venezuela] to the United States. That’s a very difficult question. I mean, if RCTV had violated the law, I assume they wouldn’t get the concession renewed.”
For Lauría, non-renewal itself is not the problem. His concern is the process by which the decision was reached. “I assume in the US there would be a process. The FCC would follow protocol. This is what hasn’t happened in Venezuela. We’re not arguing that the concession should be renewed, should be given to RCTV. We’re just saying that there’s no process to evaluate if it should be.”
Vivanco also complained about the process, saying that if the government argues there is a violation of the contract, “that would be settled normally in court. Second, if there’s some crimes committed, the individuals who were involved in those crimes should be prosecuted in a court of law.”
On process, they have a legitimate point. The government seems to have made the decision without any administrative or judicial hearings. Unfortunately, this is what the law, first enacted in 1987, long before Chávez entered the political scene, allows. It charges the executive branch with decisions about license renewal, but does not seem to require any administrative hearing. The law should be changed, but at the current moment when broadcast licenses are up for renewal, it is the prevailing law and thus lays out the framework in which decisions are made.
However, Vivanco’s critique goes beyond process to the government’s justification for non-renewal. “You have the president saying, forget it, the license is not going to be renewed, it’s a bunch of golpistas [coup-mongers] or fascists or whatever – which is clearly some sort of censorship. That sounds like an arbitrary decision made by the president on political grounds. And that is not acceptable.”
Lauría also told me that RCTV was “selectively chosen because of opposition views.”
But is support for the violent overthrow of an elected government really protected political speech? Vivanco acknowledges that RCTV “obviously probably sympathized with the coup.” But, he says, “it is a matter of free speech.”
Vivanco understates RCTV’s connection to the coup. RCTV encouraged viewers to attend a rally that was part of the coup strategy, invited coup leaders to address the country on their channel, and reported the false information that the president had resigned. After Pedro Carmona declared himself president and dissolved the National Assembly, Supreme Court, and other democratic institutions, the head of RCTV Marcel Granier met with him in the Presidential Palace. The following day, when mass protests and loyal army units brought back President Chávez, RCTV and other stations blacked out the news, showing movies and cartoons instead.
Such actions clearly go beyond protected free speech, at least in the United States. Imagine the consequences if NBC took such actions during a coup against Bush.
In fact, RCTV’s participation in the oil strike of 2002-2003, and even their joining in legal political campaigns would be grounds for revoking their broadcast license in the United States.
Consider this episode in the US. Two weeks before the 2004 presidential election, it was reported that the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates the largest number of local TV stations in the United States, planned to order its affiliates to replace prime-time programming with a documentary critical of John Kerry.
Democrats were outraged. The Democratic National Committee filed a case with the FCC arguing that such “partisan propaganda” was inappropriate. And, yes, at least one powerful Democratic politician swore that if the documentary was aired, there would be no Sinclair Broadcast Group by the 2008 election. A Kerry spokesman said, “You don’t expect your local TV station to be pushing a political agenda two weeks before an election. It’s un-American.” Couldn’t it be un-Venezuelan too? (The political pressures above led Sinclair to cancel the anti-Kerry broadcast).
If RCTV were the only major source of opposition to the government, the loss of its voice would be troubling. It would also be disturbing if the RCTV case forced others to tone down legitimate opposition. But Greg Wilpert, a sociologist living in Venezuela, declares, “It is the height of absurdity to say that there’s a lack of freedom of press in Venezuela.”
Of the top four private TV stations, three air mostly entertainment and one, Globovisión, is a 24-hours news channel. On Globovisión, Wilpert says, “the opposition is very present. They pretty much dominate it. And in the others, they certainly are very present in the news segments.”
Regarding the print media, Wilpert told me, “There are three main newspapers. Of those three, two are definitely very opposition. The other one is pretty neutral. I would say, [the opposition] certainly dominates the print media by far. There’s no doubt about that.”
“I think some of the TV stations have slightly moderated [their opposition to the government] not because of intimidation, but because they were losing audience share. Over half of the population is supportive of Chávez . They’ve reduced the number of anti-Chávez programs that they used to have. But those that continue to exist are just as anti-Chávez as they were before.”
The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.
Once again, it seems, the warnings of a move from democracy to dictatorship in Venezuela have been loud but lacking in evidence.
Patrick McElwee is a policy analyst with Just Foreign Policy (www.justforeignpolicy.org). He can be reached at patrick@justforeignpolicy.org.
© 2007 Just Foreign Policy
During the Vietnam War, President Johnson allegedly threatened the president of CBS with non-renewal of its broadcast license after the network aired a segment showing American soldiers torching Vietnamese houses with lighters. NBC subsequently killed a story about GI’s desecrating corpses. Just happened to be reading national security expert Caleb Rossiter’s personal memoir about the era posted on the web at http://www.calebrossiter.com/index.html, and that’s what he says.
Media critics here have often pointed out that concerns on the part of the major corporations over U.S. government licensing and approval of expansions and acquisitions is a major reason for the self-censorhip and abysmal quality of American media.
If a US network supported a coup against Bush, not only would the license be immediately revoked, but all those involved in making the decision would be spending time in Guantanamo, if they were still alive.
RCTV would not have lasted two minutes in the US–and not just in the US of Bush the Intolerant, but in any US time.
I spend a fair amount of time in Venezuela–and am returning there next week to check out the aftermath of RCTV’s not being on the air as a mainstream channel (one thing that the author of this piece SHOULD have mentioned is that the 3000 workers will not NECESSARILY be in the street, as RCTV can still broadcast on the cable networks–and in fact it’s the station owner who has been threatening and intimidating the workers to get them to protest). I have seen the kinds of programming RCTV has presented over the years and it is racist, seditious garbage–and that’s being KIND.
Venezuela has been trying to be in the vanguard of communication in all media since Chavez took office in 1999. I attended a conference there in November of 2003 on the topic–in representation at the time of a university in Ecuador–and saw that the government was beginning to put its money where its mouth was then. By contrast, Mexico (my country of residence) was represented by a couple of professors from the public universities who gave a pretty good rundown on the media monopoly that exists here and which is being debated by the Mexican Supreme Court even as I type these words. Mexico has imitated the US in the monopolizing of media and other resources, and people here are getting tired of being fed pre-digested right wing pap.
Venezuela is putting its emphasis on RESPONSIBLE and PLURAL media programming. And I say MORE POWER to that country.
The RCTV non-renewal has nothing to do with free speech. RCTV abused free speech for years and actively tried to de-stabilize the country that gave it the media concession. In fact, the commerical t.v. and radio stations in Venezuela have acted more like POLITICAL PARTIES than like mass media, in that they have actively fomented civil disturbance and have waged hate campaigns since Chavez was a CANDIDATE in the late 90s–all of them on the basis of his being NON-WHITE.
Marcel Granier, RCTV’s owner, has been whining and whimpering about loss of free speech and about authoritarianism when what he is really whining about is a move that effects his pocketbook. He knew the rules of the game–both legally and politically–and he chose to ignore them, thinking that the power of the white (or trying to be white) oligarchy would win out–like in the old days.
He bet his hand and he lost–and now he doesn’t want to let the pot go to TEVES, the new, community-based channel that will replace him next Monday. Too bad. He still has enough money to pay US firms for hate campaigns (1 million dollars since March) and to pay for folks to fly to Europe and the US and stay in luxury hotels while they whimper and whine about how they have no freedom in Venezuela.
Since before Chavez was elected those guys have been crying wolf. We are talking at least 10 years of crying wolf when they are the wolves in sheep’s clothing raking in money from US taxpayers through USAID, the CIA and NED–among other organizations that you folks are funding.
In other news, Miami’s Connie Mack (representive mossback for the Cuban Mafia in the House of Representatives) is blazing his racist anger at Danny Glover because he is going to make two films in partnership with the government of Venezuela.
Why do you folks continue to support these cut-rate Catalines on Capitol Hill? Who in turn shovel money to cut-rate Catalines in Caracas?
Why not have the buck just STOP–and do something positive with your tax dollars?
Right on moonraven!
The airwaves belong to the people. Chavez is right to take them back from US backed counter-revolutionaries.
Never forget the CIA role in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende of Chile in the coup of September 1973. CIA helped plant lots of anti-government propaganda-specifically “Plan Z,” engineered by David Atlee Phillips. A copy of Plan Z was placed in the seatback pockets of Lan-Chile aircraft at that time.
Incidentally, Phillips also worked in the coup in 1954, which overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz.
Phillips, fortunately, is no longer with us.
Less fortunate than we are his victims–very possibly JFK, but certainly others, since he was partnered with Luis Posada–the arch-terrorist of this hemisphere now living it up on the Bush administration’s nickel in Miami.
We can expect a pardon of Posada by Bush II sooner rather than later–just like his other partner, Orlando Bosch, was pardoned by Bush I.
And the beat goes on.
Or you could look at Australia where one of our State Governments is threatening to withhold legislation agreed upon by the National and other State governments unless the main daily newspaper in that state sacks an editor that government dislikes. We are living in a time when governments of all persuasions are increasingly using force, fear and spin to try and isolate the people from the truth.
At least in the case of Chavez, it appears that he is speaking for the people he represents, unlike so many other ‘democratically elected’ leaders around this trouble world.
So go on cable, satellite, or Internet with your broadcasting–but let the people have their airwaves back Mr. Oligarch. Viva Chavez!
The new station that will replace RCTV looks interesting — part of the government’s plan to decentralize and democratize broadcasting so the maximum number of citizens can participate in both the production and viewing of television.
And the whole issue of free speech, etc. is so ridiculous, when with the nationalization of CANTV, landline and cell phone rates are already going down and the government is proceeding rapidly to spread internet access across the country. That’s hardly the actions of an authoritarian that wants to keep his country in the dark. In fact, what is going on now is a renaissance in Venezuela with an increasingly active and engaged public, especially of people who were marginalized before. Even Paraguay’s center-right president claimed that Venezuela is experiencing an “overdose of democracy!”
The actions against RCTV are belated. It should have been forced off the air back in 2002, but the government is now in a legal position to yank its license for the utilization of the public airwaves which are a public commodity. It’s not a novel concept, but one that goes back to the original ideas about radio, that were sadly superseded by the broadcasting monopolies, just as the internet is threatened today with attempts to subvert net neutrality.
Sadly, in Canada things are heading in the opposite direction, with the increasing marginalization of the public broadcaster to the benefit of private ones.
http://www.publicairwaves.ca/index.php?page=1873
However, Venezuela still has 4 major networks recycling television shows from the US and indulging in the same inane broadcasting. Oh well, one step at a time. Then again, people cannot just watch edifying public television all the time!
When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gabon, the president dropped a bomb on the opposition radio station. There was a comment from the local embassy, but little else mentioned of the incident.
Why is the Venezuelan media such a big concern for us, other than the fact that Chavez is such a huge critic of Bush?
Many right wing Americans called for Fahrenheit 911 to be banned from America. These same people are harping about Chavez doing what they do or would like to do.
The extreme right wing of this hemisphere (and of course in Spain) constantly wages war in the media against Chavez because the progress his government has made is living proof on a grand scale that doing the opposite of what Washington, the World Bank, the World Monetary Fund and the rest of the multinationals (including facade organizations like Reporters without Borders) recommend leads to SUCCESS.
They are biting their hands because a non-white Third World leader is making them eat his dust–and as petroleum is now at 70 bucks a barrel that dust is going to get heavier and last longer than any of them ever expected.
Here in Mexico there has been a LOT of money spent on a tv campaign thrying to paint RCTV as a victim of an authoritarian president. In today’s La Jornada, however, there was a full-page demand to end the dirty campaign–with a good explanation (in Spanish, sniff, for all you monolinguals) of the issue and signed by all the leading intellectuals and a group of organizations that DO promote freedom of the press.
I have zero sympathy for Granier–and for the rest of his rancid ilk. But ignorance goes a long way to keeping the dirty war against Venezuela sctive. And the US, of course, is the number one ignoramus in the pack.
The whole RCTV thing is just an excuse to foment civil disturbances–as evidenced by the stashes of C4 plastics and weapons that are turning up all around Caracas–and the Colombian paramilitary/John Negroponte coup caper. I will be able to see the attempts to overthrow the government again at close range, as will arrive in Caracas Tuesday afternoon….
It’s a good thing that the station was shut down.
When the station supported the coup in 2002, it supported terrorists and organized criminals. Afterwards, it continued to act with plenty of arrogance and no remorse. There is no doubt that the station is sympathetic to the world’s most notorious and powerful terrorist group (led from the pentagon & white house).
The station is cleverly manipulating the masses in Venezuela by playing on their emotions, which makes it impossible for the Venezuelan people to grasp what is taking place (and has taken place) on the mental plane. It’s the same tactic that the US media uses to minimize any threats to the business as usual - establishment, here in the belly of the beast.
!Viva Hugo Chavez and the revolution! To hell with the state supported violence, deception, undbridled greed and merciless nature of American styled capitalism.
“Actually, in other democratic countries, broadcast companies sometimes do not get their licenses renewed. For example, in Britain in 1992, in a process based in part on a subjective assessment of “quality of service,” Thames Television lost its license after 24 years of service. Several British commentators speculated that the Thatcher government had influenced the result.” — this article unfortunately doesn’t elaborate, briefly: Thames Television aired a documentary allegeding the SAS executed members of an IRA cell in Gibraltar — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_On_The_Rock
should have included it with the first post, oh well, recording of Death on the Rock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5t2RdEnBl4
That old piece in Le Monde was a good one - better than most of what I’ve read in the U.S. media.
More crocodile tears throughout the MSM today over RCTV. Enough already. I’m sure the global corporate elite will milk this story for as long as possible.
Had a TV station here in the USA incited violence and a coup against the White House, you can bet your a** that the government would send the station’s CEO and station manager to Guantanamo for life on terrorism charges.
Freedom of speech is one thing, but screaming “FIRE!” in a crowded theater is another.
Chavez is right to turn the station over to more responsible and accountable leadership.