Online Poll

Responses to Telesur’s online poll questions are usually pretty one-sided, but today’s poll is different. The question is “After the Summit of the Americas do you believe that U.S. relations with Venezuela, Cuba and Ecudor will be strengthened?” As the graph shows, about half of the die-hard Telesur audience believes relations will improve.

Spinning Ban Ki-Moon

While there may be some changes to Telesur’s coverage of the U.S., when it comes to stories about the Middle East, particularly involving Israel, it’s more of the same. On Monday Telesur aired a story about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory comments at a UN conference in Switzerland. The headline of Telesur’s story is “Ahmadinejad Denounces Creation of Racist Government in Israel”. The NY Times headline for the same story was, “Speech Prompts Walkout at Racism Conference”.

In its version of the story, Telesur cherry-picks comments from a statement made by UN Sec. General Ban Ki-moon which was actually highly critical of Ahmadinejad’s remarks. Telesur quotes Ban Ki-moon expressing frustration with the 9 nations that walked out of the conference in protest, but made no mention of his condemnation of the Iranian president’s speech, including this statement: “I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian President to accuse, divide and even incite. This is the opposite of what this Conference seeks to achieve...It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian President.”

By comparison, Al Jazeera English did report the critical comments made by Moon and other Western officials, and generally had much more thorough coverage of the incident, including how it divided opinion in Iran between Ahmadinejad’s critics and supporters.

Assassination Plot

As Bolivian president Evo Morales arrived in Caracas for the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) summit, Telesur is reporting on the alleged assassination plot against Morales and his vice president, which was foiled after a shoot-out in a Bolivian hotel which left three dead, including two Hungarians and a Bolivian. Telesur's headline: "Evo Morales Denounces International Mercenaries Plot," highlights the theme of foreign intervention in Latin American affairs. The story also refers to an Irish national who was arrested at the hotel.

While reports in the New York Times and elsewhere include similar details about the incident, Telesur's coverage ends on an ideological note. Both on its website and in its daily newscast, Telesur quotes Morales alleging that the mercenaries were supported by elements of the "fascist extreme right". Ahead of the Summit of the Americas, Morales goes on to say that "'it's necessary to do away with capitalism in order to save humanity', something that had already said on Saturday in an exclusive interview to TeleSUR and considered that it was the central theme of the Summit of the Americas, where the people have to decide between this model and socialism...'I agree with the approach of the indigenous and social leaders that capitalism is the enemy of humanity...until we finish with capitalism we can not save humanity,' he added."

Voice of the South

While the Western media has been intensely focused on the G20 talks in Europe recently, Telesur has been covering another summit which has been virtually ignored by Western broadcasters. The 2nd Arab-South American Summit in Doha took place this week, with stories running on Telesur about the creation of a binational Venezuelan-Iranian bank, defiance from Arab leaders in particular about the arrest warrant issued for Sudanese Presdient Bashir, and Chavez’ typically flamboyant call for the arrest of former President Bush and Israeli President Shimon Peres on genocide charges.


The headlines from Doha this week read like a menu of Telesur’s anti-hegemonic themes: anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, defiant about human rights charges, and calling for greater solidarity and integration both between South American and Arab countries, and also regionally within Latin America and the Arab world. The summit was originally proposed by Brazlian Presdient Lula and the first one was held in 2005. The summit concluded with an 11-point declaration emphasizing “south-south cooperation” and weighing in about major political issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crisis in Darfur.

It's the Economy, Stupid

Under the headline, “Chavez Blames U.S. for Economic Crisis,” Telesur ran a story yesterday with a sharp critique from the Venezuelan president about the “greed, speculation, and immorality” of the capitalist system responsible for the global economic crisis. Chavez also made highly questionable claims about Venezuela’s supposed insulation from the economic crisis so far, and justified the government’s take-over of a Cargill rice plant this week, saying the government would insure that employers abide by the Venezuelan constitution.

Chavez claimed, “The crisis hasn’t touched us yet, in Venezuela we haven’t felt it, but this continues to move on in the world, and it will ultimately effect us too if the crisis continues to deepen, because we’re interconnected with the international community.”

Considering the tumbling prices of oil which both preceded and have been accelerated by the global economic crisis, it’s hard to believe Venezuela hasn’t been touched by the downturn. Chavez assured citizens that social spending and public works projects would continue uninterrupted, and boasted that while jobs were being lost in the U.S. he had just signed a law protecting jobs in Venezuela because, “government’s responsibility is to protect workers.”

Chavez’ comments are especially interesting considering a Bloomberg story from yesterday about the Cargill rice plant situation- according to Bloomberg, Venezuela has the highest inflation in Latin America and food and beverage prices have risen 40% just since last February. “Private investment and manufacturing have slowed in Venezuela and the private sector had zero growth in 2008...Morgan Stanley predicts the Venezuelan economy will contract 1 percent in 2009.” Sounds like Venezuela has been touched by the global downturn just like the rest of the world.

CIA Stories

In the last few days, Telesur has run a number of stories about alleged CIA interference with at least three Latin American countries. Starting Wednesday, Telesur had extensive coverage of a diplomatic row that erupted between the U.S. and Argentina after CIA director Leon Panetta warned in a speech that, “Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela are in dire economic straits and could be destabilized by the global economic crisis”.

Argentina summoned its U.S. ambassador demanding an explanation and apparently received an apology by phone from Panetta, although the apology has so far only been reported by Spanish language news sites. Interestingly, Telesur has focused less on the Venezuelan government’s own response to the comments: a story appeared quietly on the website about Chavez demanding an apology from Obama for the comments, but the Argentinian response has gotten a lot more attention.

On Thursday, Telesur ran a story about alleged CIA infiltration of the Bolivian state oil company (YPFB). The headline was “Morales Denounces CIA Actions Against Progressive Governments,” and included complaints from the Bolivian president about “covert CIA operations” in the scandal-plagued Bolivian state oil company.

Friday, Telesur ran an exclusive interview with Ecuador’s security minister, Miguel Carvajal, who claimed a recent investigation uncovered evidence of CIA payments to informants within Ecuadorian state agencies, including agencies involved in “operations against transnational organized crime and drugdealing.” Carvajal called the CIA’s involvement “unacceptable”.

The stories draw on a legacy of covert CIA operations in South America, especially during the 1970’s, which has instilled permanent suspicions about the agency among a lot of Latin Americans. American interference with Latin America, and particularly with Venezuela, has been an ongoing theme on Telesur.

Telesur's Agenda

Telesur’s coverage over the last couple of days is a good example of the kind of agenda-setting the network’s trying to do. For starters, Telesur has chosen not to cover the Academy Awards at all. The top story over the last few days has been a wiretapping scandal in Colombia which has gotten very little coverage so far on other networks, including major Latin American newspapers.

The scandal is about agents of the DAS (Colombian intelligence service) who allegedly wiretapped journalists, Supreme court judges and members of the political opposition. There have been contradictory claims that Colombian drug lords were behind the operation or that Uribe’s Colombian government itself was responsible.

Telesur’s coverage includes an accusation that the U.S. provided the surveillance equipment used, which hasn’t been reported elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Chavez government has just announced that it will be supporting a search for a Colombian presidential candidate in 2010 who shares the Venezuelan government’s ideological approach.

So Telesur’s heavily reporting a scandal that could damage the Colombian president, while the Venezuelan government looks for a candidate to oppose Uribe in 2010. That seems to be both agenda-setting in Telesur’s choice of stories as well as news coverage with a pretty clear agenda.

Gitmo Diplomacy

Telesur has picked up a story from the AP wire about a visit next week by new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The difference in the Telesur story - which is taken almost word for word from the AP story- is Telesur describes Guantanamo as an “illegal prison,” a description which they use in the headline as well: “New U.S. Attorney General to Visit Illegal Prison”. While Gitmo is a popular subject among international broadcasters, none of the other networks describe Gitmo as an illegal prison. The only other similar description I’ve seen is in Cuban newspapers (like Juventud Rebelde ) which describe Guantanamo as an "illegally-occupied naval base”.

Telesur Cranks Up the Coverage

As Venezuelans get ready to vote on Sunday for the second time in less than 2 years on a constitutional amendment that would allow Chavez to run for office indefinitely, Telesur has been cranking up the coverage. Today’s coverage of a rally with Chavez traveling through a sea of red as supporters talk about why they plan to vote yes for the amendment, has been repeated several times in the last few weeks. The Chavez government has organized these color-coordinated rallies all over the country to try to build support for the amendment.

Meanwhile Telesur has mostly avoided coverage of opposition rallies, student protests, and alleged suppression by the government of opposition groups, which has been on the front pages of the main Venezuelan newspapers (El Universal and El Nacional). Telesur did air an interview with Chavez this week in which he said the government would oppose dissident groups which had “international funding” and had “violent plans” to disrupt the referendum.

Telesur has also been running a half hour special on the amendment with experts from Bolivia, Spain, and Venezuela describing how the amendment would actually be advancing Venezuelan democracy. The special describes North American democracy as being corrupted by the excesses of capitalism, and says the purest forms of democracy are being practiced in Europe. It also claims that there are EU member states which allow for indefinite election of their presidents. I haven’t figured out which ones those are yet, but this is part of the way Telesur is framing the amendment as evidence of a true democracy where the constitution can be changed according to the people’s will, rather than as an attempt to consolidate power as many of Chavez’s opponents suspect.

Where's Obama?

Compared to other networks there are surprisingly few images (photos or video) of Barack Obama broadcast on Telesur, and very limited coverage of Obama’s administration so far, both on the website and live channel. Telesur makes clear that its mission is to focus on issues of significance to Latin America and to skew away from U.S.-centric reporting. Still, for a station as conscious of image and personality as Telesur, it seems like part of an overall editorial policy. The policy could be a response to Obama’s popularity in Latin America, which is extremely high according to a BBC world service poll taken around the time of the inauguration.

In comparison, pictures of Bush and key members of his administration appeared often on Telesur, especially on the website, in articles critical of his policies. Ironically, Bush’s unpopularity may have been good for business for the Chavez administration, while, based on the cold shoulder he’s gotten so far in coverage, Obama may be bad for business.

While Obama has been nowhere to be found recently on the Telesur site, CNN en Espanol has kept a running story called “The First 100 Days of Obama” on its website. Other international broadcasters like Press TV, Russia Today and Al Jazeera English also seem to show Obama more frequently, so this may be unique to Telesur for the moment.

Telesur: News with an Accent

Telesur’s main news anchor, Brazilian Clarise Arduz, delivers the news with a distinct Portuguese accent. Given the network’s original choice of Ati Kiwa, a Colombian Indian woman who wore traditional tribal dress, it’s hard to believe that Arduz’ nationality wasn’t considered carefully in making her the voice of Telesur news. In public diplomacy the messenger can be as significant as the message, and the choice of Arduz, whose accent as an original Portuguese speaker is as obvious to native Spanish speakers as a British accent would be to Americans, is probably an attempt to establish a certain kind of credibility with Latin American viewers.

Brazil is a rising power in the region as both the most populous Latin American country and its largest economy with a 2 trillion dollar GDP. Significantly, Brazil’s Lula and Chavez haven’t always agreed politically, so a Brazilian anchor wouldn’t automatically be assumed to be a mouthpiece for the Chavez government, the way a Bolivian or Nicaraguan anchor might be. Having a Brazilian voice deliver news that appears to have a pro-Chavez agenda may be a way to capitalize on Brazil’s growing influence in the region. Just as Russia Today employs British and American anchors to connect with Western viewers, Telesur’s choice of Arduz seems to be part of its strategy to try to establish credibility with its Latin American audience.

Telesur: Chavez vs. Local Media

Last Saturday the oldest synagogue in Venezuela was vandalized and spray-painted with anti-Semitic slurs. Telesur’s coverage of the story highlighted the government’s criticism of the major Venezuelan newspapers and media outlets for their reporting about the incident. Chavez condemned allegations in the local coverage that supporters of the government could have either provoked or in some way supported the attack.

The vandalism came after weeks of tensions between Venezuela and Israel over the Gaza conflict, and the expulsion of the Venezuelan and Israeli ambassadors respectively, from each country. Chavez’ criticism of the local media and the “oligarchy” which controls it has been an ongoing theme. The first 2 paragraphs from a Telesur story about the incident is below (translated)--

Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, roundly condemned the attack on a synagogue in the capital, carried out during the early hours of Saturday morning, while blaming radical members of his political opposition with ‘links to the nation’s oligarchy’.

The president complained that the incident was reported on the front pages of the countries’ private media (newspapers) with unsubstantiated allegations that supporters of the national government were in some way behind the attack.