So you think the yanking of RCTV's broadcast license by Chavez for opposing him means that there is a dominant opposition media that is free from the threat of similar reprisals? Thanks for giving me another laugh.
If you knew how the Venezuelan opposition press actually operates you wouldn't ask that question. It is very anti-Government. Compares Chavez to Hitler etc.
The refusal to renew RCTVs license made a couple of other TV-stations tone it down a notch, but they are still highly critical of the regime.
Its a fact that the vast majority of the country's media outlets are owned by Chavez opponents.
They'd already toned down, as you so charmingly put it, before RCTV got its license pulled and its broadcast assets seized. That RCTV didn't kowtow to Chavez is why it got the shaft. They may still be owned by his opponents, but they don't dare make too many waves lest they too get their assets nationalized for céntimos on the bolivar. Chavez likes to pretend that he's a democrat, but he isn't. Granted, he's not a Kim, Castro, or Mugabe. Probably the world leader whose style is closest to what his is Putin, except he hasn't been as successful at it as Putin has been. Tho it hasn't been for lack of trying.
I think you are changing the subject. I never said Chavez was a perfect democrat. What I said was that he is democratically elected (in elections that international observers consider free) and that his opponents control most of the press. This was the allegation that you chose to ridicule apparently only based on one single case (that is more complex than you portray it since they were probably guilty of supporting the 2002 coup, which makes the governments actions somewhat legitimate).
I doubt you have been to Venezuela. The opposition press is mostly very anti-Chavez and very right wing with a shrill tone (think Fox News times five). With "tone it down" I meant stop spreading wild allegations without any evidence and stop calling the government a dictatorship five times a day. I don't really consider that a loss to freedom of the press since most of the stuff they cut down on was libelous.
Chavez doesn't have anywhere near the control over the press that Putin has in Russia (if he did the Venezuelan media woud be very different!). Remember that he may have the political power, but the entire economic elite in the country is against him often using very heavy handed methods themselves (including violence against political opponents, grassroots organizations and poor people). Venezuela is a complex country and not nearly as black and white as it is portrayed in the American media. There are few good guys or moderates in this wretched but beautifull country.
