Thu Mar 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

“Media hedge” surrounding the conflict

Another debate clarified


 


The conflict and the repression in Sidor suffered a veritable “plot of silence” by the Venezuelan press – both: private and official. Thus, on 15/3/2008, the independent agency Communitarian Reporters of Merida reported, “It called our attention powerfully that, in the face of such events, a ‘media hedge’ is built up in Venezuela, including all the national media, private and official (press, radio and TV) all of which make efforts to conceal or minimise the struggle of metallurgic workers”.


 


That is what trade union leader, Marcela Maspero revealed to reporters that “media hedge round the SIDOR conflict, partly spawned by the multinational itself and its tentacles in the private media but also by Labour Minister, who took the trouble to visit Minister of Communication, Chairman of VTV, ABN and all the remaining officials, personally in order to depict the Sidor struggle in the darkest possible colours.”


 


With this in mind, it is interesting to resume the debate that took place when the Chavez administration failed to renew the lease on the TCTV broadcasting and incorporated this space, together with the transmitting equipment, into the state-owned network which where now the TVES functions. The IWL-FI stood against this measure and warned that, ultimately it would go against the freedom of expression of the workers. Because of this position we were vigorously attacked by several left trends and accused of playing the game of the right-wing bourgeoisie coup makers, previous lease holders.


 


This debate can now be brought down to earth and be made with much more clarity. As we can see, in the Sidor case, all the bourgeois press – whether public (included TVES) or private silenced the struggle of these workers and the repression that ensued. That means that there was a very deep class agreement between the government and the right-wing bourgeoisie. That is why, the question that those who defended that measure should answer now is very simple: has the freedom of the press of the working class accrued? We believe the answer to be blatantly NO. In the Sidor case, as we can now assess from the behaviour of all the media, the only ones who benefited were the “Bolivarian bourgeois” and the multinationals.

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