[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Telesur to begin broadcasting in May

[Alfred Kagan]

FYI, speaking of the media.

>> Telesur to begin broadcasting in May
>>
>> A regional television station is to make an important contribution to
>> counteracting the colossal informational imbalance in Latin America. 
>> When
>> the regional television station Telesur makes its appearance in May, a
>> considerable triumph will have been achieved in the lengthy battle to
>> establish a new world information order to replace the existing one, a
>> quasi-monopoly controlled by the United States and the European Union.
>>
>> That affirmation was made (on ALAI-AMLATINA) by Chilean journalist 
>> Hernán
>> Uribe, one of the many in Latin America who have welcomed and 
>> supported
> the
>> arrival of Telesur - Nueva Televisión del Sur SA - a project created 
>> with
>> financial backing of the Venezuelan, Argentine and Uruguayan 
>> governments
> and
>> the support of Brazilian institutions.
>>
>> The materialization of this project signifies a new world order of
>> information, one that will replace the information monopoly of the 
>> United
>> States and the European Union, according to a statement by Venezuelan
>> President Hugo Chávez, who considers it absolutely necessary to 
>> increase
> the
>> cultural independence of the Latin American countries (with a 
>> population
> of
>> 500 million inhabitants).
>>
>> Aram Aharonian, a Uruguayan journalist and Telesur's director, has
> explained
>> that it is a strategic project born from the need to give a voice to 
>> Latin
>> Americans in the midst of a host of single thoughts and images, or the
>> content of commercial media broadcasting (source: Indymedia).
>>
>> According to ANCHI, Telesur has an international board of directors 
>> headed
>> by Andrés Izarra, Venezuelan minister of information, with Aharonian 
>> as
>> general director; Ana de Escalom of Argentina, director of Channel 7 
>> in
>> Buenos Aires; Beto Almeida, a leader of Brazil's journalists' union;
>> Colombian Jorge Enrique Botero, as the channel's information 
>> director, and
>> Cuban Ovidio Cabrera.
>>
>> The regional television channel will make an important contribution to
>> counteracting the colossal informational imbalance that Latin America 
>> is
> now
>> experiencing, which has led Hernán Uribe to ask: "Does the South 
>> exist?"
>>
>> The Chilean journalists says that "historical destiny has determined 
>> that
>> the industrialized and developed nations are located in the northern
>> hemisphere and the pauperized countries are in the south, in spite of 
>> the
>> fact that 70 percent of the world's population lives in the latter.
>>
>> "In every sphere registered by statistics, the underdeveloped 
>> countries
> take
>> the bitter prize for poverty, hunger, and illiteracy, just to name a 
>> few
> of
>> the contrasts between the two geographical zones. Journalistic 
>> information
>> should also be included in these brutal differences."
>>
>> In Los medios cuentan un solo Mundo, sin el Sur (The media counts 
>> only one
>> world, without the South), Ana Delicado points out that the United 
>> States
>> and the European Union control 90% of the information on the planet; 
>> that
> is
>> why out of the 300 largest information agencies, 144 are in the United
>> States, 80 in the European Union and 49 in Japan. An illustrative 
>> point:
> the
>> poor countries, where 75% of humanity lives, possess only 30% of the
>> newspapers in the world.
>>
>> Telesur will waylay the big world news corporations in a
>> David-and-Goliath-type media confrontation, operating "under strict
>> guidelines of profitability, competitiveness and marketing," Aharonian
> told
>> La Jornada of Mexico.
>>
>> He commented that with respect to existing information on Latin 
>> America a
>> real bias exists, and a tendency to a single voice and image in its
>> messages, which do not represent what is really happening in Latin
> America.
>>
>> "We demand the right of our peoples to have their own voice. We are 
>> not
>> going to be the intermediaries of that voice; rather, those peoples 
>> will
>> have their space to express their own voice."
>>
>> With regards to future content, it is expected that more than 30% of 
>> the
>> programming will be informational, but in addition, it will have a 
>> strong
>> dose of documentaries and Latin American fictional films, as well as a
> daily
>> magazine show on cultural issues.
>>
>> Telesur will make its appearance under the slogan, "Our north is the
> south,"
>> and will be based in Caracas. Twenty-four hour broadcasting will begin
> with
>> three blocks of eight hours and will feature correspondents in the 
>> United
>> States, Mexico, Bogotá, Caracas, Havana, Lima, Buenos Aires and 
>> Brazil.
>>
>> According to its managers, the new satellite TV station will 
>> distinguish
>> itself from commercial television in many aspects: style, tone and 
>> camera
>> movement.
>>
>> For example, Botero commented in an interview, the tone will be one of
>> dialogue, it will appeal to the auditory senses, but not in the 
>> aggressive
>> way that people are used to from commercial television.
>>
>> "Our hosts will have a colloquial style; we will have journalists who 
>> will
>> tell stories, they will be reporters, not talking heads who only know 
>> how
> to
>> read the teleprompter. Our idea is to rehabilitate journalism."
>>
>> In addition, he noted: "we aspire to having our own agenda, touching 
>> on
>> issues that suddenly disappear from the radar of the commercial media,
> which
>> doesn't mean that they stop being news."
>>
>> IDEOLOGICAL BATTLE
>>
>> In a press conference in Montevideo, Aharonian said that the 
>> introduction
> of
>> Telesur is an attempt to wage an ideological battle in the area of
>> television, and he referred to the current existence of a "media
>> dictatorship," via which "the intention is to impose a single way of
>> thinking, a single image, a single point of view. We see each other in
> black
>> and white when we exist in Technicolor; we are highly diverse, we have
>> ethnic diversity, cultural diversity, a plurality of opinions - even
> within
>> the same form of thinking - and that must be reflected on the screen."
>>
>> The Telesur director recalled how "for 513 years, we were trained to 
>> see
>> ourselves through the eyes of others. And we want to have a television
>> channel that can show Latin America and the Caribbean in all its 
>> colors,
> in
>> the diversity and the plurality that we are."
>>
>> He reiterated that with Telesur, Latin America can achieve its own 
>> voice
> and
>> image. "A dream of Latin American sovereignty."
>>
>> John Pateman
>> Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group
>> 23 May 2005
>>
>
>


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801

tel. 217-333-6519
fax 217-333-2214
akagan at uiuc.edu