RE Venezuela's last major opposition TV station is sold
Dear Chris Kraul and Mery Mogollon
This article quotes the following Venezuelan government critics on the sale of Globovision – all of them echoing Carlos Lauria’s claim that “this will affect the freedom of expression landscape by undermining pluralism for all Venezuelans”:
Guillermo Zuloaga
Carlos Lauria
Marcelino Bisbal
Andres Canizalez
Leopoldo Castillo
Counter arguments are provided by NOBODY in the article. You might want to look a little closer to home, within your own articles, for a “lack of pluralism” in the media landscape.
If diversity of views interests you at some point, you might want to consult Ryan Mallett who recently observed
“…both Globovision and VTV are clearly on the fringes of Venezuela's
broadcast landscape. The real action is taking place on the more
moderate airwaves. Historically, both Venevision and Televen were
staunchly anti-government, but in recent years they have moved towards
the political centre, though an article in Ultimas Noticias argued that
both channels provided more coverage to opposition leader Henrique
Capriles during the October 2012 presidential campaign.”
You might also want to consult Greg Wilpert, the author of “Changing Venezuela by taking Power”. When I asked him about the frequently echoed claim that Globovsion is the last “consistently critical” anti-government broadcaster with “national coverage” Wilpert replied
“I think it is important to point out that other private media outlets,
such as Venevision and Televen (all private TV, free-to-air, and
national) and Union Radio (radio, free-to-air, national) are not
‘consistently critical’ of the government because they all have a
variety of pro- and anti-government view points in their programming.
Demanding that Venezuela have more than one Globovision channel is kind
of like demanding that the US have more than one Fox News channel. By
what logic is this a legitimate demand for Venezuela but not for the
US?”
Perhaps because of your incredibly one-sided choice of sources, you falsely stated in the article that Globovision is “the last major television station critical of the government”. It may be the last “consistently critical” (i.e totally one sided, anti government) major broadcaster. It is very far from being the last major broadcaster Venezuelans can to go to and find criticism of the government.
Joe Emersberger
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