Reuters has an interesting piece on the degree to which the conflict in Honduras is being played out in the media:Honduras crisis unleashes media wars.
The part that I found especially striking was that which describes what is going on within Hounduras itself:
State television has been repeatedly playing rousing music over pictures of pro-Micheletti marches and slogans urging Hondurans to “Hold Firm” for peace and democracy. One of the most frequently played pieces is the stirring theme music from the 1980s movie about U.S. Navy fighter pilots, “Top Gun.”Periodically, authorities cut transmission on all cable channels and broadcast announcements about curfews on local TV stations. Uniformed police officers are hosting news programs.
At the time when Zelaya was staging his symbolic come-back on the border, state TV stations were showing a meeting of an electoral committee and a demonstration by Hondurans waving blue and white flags and holding placards (some in English) praising Micheletti and denouncing Zelaya.
Television spots accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and ally of Zelaya, of orchestrating the coup are also frequent.
Venezuelan TV channel Telesur has been blocked in Honduras, leaving many with cable to rely on CNN en Espanol as their main source of television news from outside Honduras.
This all reinforces previously reported information about the media climate in Honduras (this post from early on in the conflict comes to mind), a situation which runs counter to the pro-coup narrative that Zelaya’s ouster was a blow struck for democracy. If Zelaya was a rouge president bent on destroying Honduran democracy who had to be removed by a “constitutional substitution” (as the Micheletti government continues to call it), then why have to censor the press, and for this long? If Zelaya’s extremely brief return to Honduras was, indeed, “ill-conceived and silly” (Micheletti’s words) then why not let the Honduran people know all about it?
If the government is going to use the airwaves to try and stir nationalistic feelings for the interim government while actively attempting to block basic news about events, it is difficult to maintain the argument that they are fighting to protect democracy. If one feels one must shield the people from information so as to maintain power, then one cannot claim to be a democrat.
Those who read Spanish should also check out the following report from Reuters: Medios de Honduras, en la mira crítica internacional tras golpe.
Earlier in the week, Reports Without Borders issued the following report: International community urged to demand an end to news media lockdown by de facto authorities
Honduran journalists have told Reporters Without Borders that radio and TV stations are liable to be suspended if they broadcast even the briefest report about the ousted president or give any airtime to one of his ministers or representatives. At the same time, the government headed by de facto President Roberto Micheletti is using a telecommunications law dating from the Cold War to force broadcasters to carry its statements and communiqués or risk being sanctioned.
The whole piece is worth reading.
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July 27th, 2024 at 10:40 am
Typical this:
“Television spots accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and ally of Zelaya…”
And so right there, both Chavez and Zelaya are by definition DANGEROUS.
Yet it goes unanswered, unasked in fact, how it is that Chavez is a “socialist,” other than by his own expedient definition.