Latin leader rebels against US-centric news

Information Minister Andrés Izarra is the company's president, and headquarters are being constructed here in Caracas. Some 35 staffers are already in the cubicles of the makeshift second-floor office, beepers and cellphones clasped to their jeans. Other offices are being set up in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, and in Washington. There is even a news anchor standing by: Ati Kiwa, an indigenous Colombian woman who wears traditional dress.

"We have been trained to see ourselves through foreign eyes," says Aharonian. "Europeans and Americans see us in black and white, and yet this is a technicolor continent."

For some, such talk rings hollow. "We all like the idea of a Latin American perspective of news, but not a one-sided view," replies Ms. Nuñez of Globovision. "I am very suspicious that Telesur will represent the voice only of leftist governments in Latin America - and will be an instrument of propaganda for them."

Globovision is not the only private media station in Venezuela hostile to Chávez. During the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted the president, most outlets openly sided with the opposition, providing round-the-clock coverage of anti-Chávez protests while refusing to air footage of massive demonstrations held in support of him. Since then, says Ms. Nuñez, "It has been payback time."

Globovision hired Nuñez four months ago in response to Chávez's new press laws, under which whoever "offends," or "shows disrespect for," or "defames" the president or his top officials, will face fines and punishment of six to 30 months in prison.

Nuñez spends her days now, she says, trying to interpret those terms for the journalists and editors she works with.

"There is no jurisprudence to go by, and people don't know what is allowed and what's a crime," she says. The new laws have already led to widespread self- censorship across the country's half-dozen private channels, she says. Late-night TV jokes about Chávez are out, risqué political talk shows are being canceled, and news reports are being finely combed before airing. "Telesur is introducing a super-well-funded official voice, just as free-press voices are being fined and intimidated," she says. "Coincidence?"

The French media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders and the New York-based Committee to Protect journalists are already worried. Both have expressed concerns over the increased regulation of media content. And Human Rights Watch, the international monitor, insists that governments can only restrict certain content if "there is a clear relation between the speech in question and a specific criminal act."

Aharonian dismisses any suggestion that Telesur is part of some bigger plan to muzzle the media or give Chávez an open microphone. The programming is not "against or instead of any other," but simply an option, he maintains. "That is what the remote control is for," he says, "so people can pick and choose between different perspectives."

Larry Birns, director of the left-leaning Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington is not quite as diplomatic. "Chávez found himself yielding an important battlefield to anti-Chavista perspective, both from within and from outside the county," he says. "Uruguay and Argentina found a similar lack of ability to communicate - and this is their combined response."

Ultimately, slanted or straight, Telesur's success will depend on whether it's watchable, says Richard Siklos, adjunct professor at New York University's department of culture and communication. "[Chávez] will learn what every media executive in New York has learned: You can put stuff out there, but if people don't watch, you are wasting your money."

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