Venezuela's Media Coup
February 13th, 2003By Naomi Klein Poor Endy Chávez, outfielder for the Navegantes del Megallanes, one of Venezuela's big baseball teams. Every time he comes up to bat, the local TV sportscasters start in with the jokes. "Here comes Chávez. No not the pro-Cuban dictator Chávez, the other Chávez." Or "This Chávez hits baseballs, not the Venezuelan people." In Venezuela, even color commentators are enlisted in the commercial media's open bid to oust the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez. Andrés Izarra, a Venezuelan television journalist, says that the campaign has done so much violence to truthful information on the national airwaves that the four private TV stations have effectively forfeited their right to broadcast. "I think their licenses should be revoked," he says. It's the sort of extreme pronouncement one has come to expect from Chavez, known for nicknaming the stations "the four horsemen of the apocalypse." Izarra, however, is harder to dismiss. A squeaky clean made-for-TV type, he worked as assignment editor in charge of Latin America at CNN en Español until he was hired as News Production Manager for Venezuela's highest rated newscast, El Observador on RCTV. On April 13, 2002, the day after business leader Pedro Carmona...