The press can be unapologetic about the way its coverage is affected by its political leaning. This is too often true when it comes to the way censorship and other human rights abuses are reported.

The latest case to bring this trend to light was the media fall-out from the controversial non-renewal of broadcaster RCTV’s license in Venezuela in May of this year. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is one of the most politically divisive figures in Latin American politics, revered and hated both within Venezuela and on the global stage. This was reflected in the polarity of response: the Washington Post called the measures ‘proof that Chávez is a dictator’. Another story, however, was being told by others in the media. In the UK, commentators such as John Pilger and Labour MP Colin Burgon leapt to support Chávez, characterising the media response in terms of a political Right capitalising on an opportunity to undermine the Venezuelan government’s socialist programme with the media acting as its accomplice. This crucial politicisation of the media situation, led to a number of robust articles backing Chávez based, not on an impartial scrutiny of the facts, but on the grounds of political affiliation. The outcome of this justification of censorship was embodied in a series of defensive articles run by the Guardian and the New Statesmen, and in a number of high-profile petitions supporting Chávez’s decision.

Articles such as Pilger’s ’Venezuela and Censorship’, rather than approaching the issue immediately, instead stress Chávez’s positive work in Venezuela: using oil revenue to support the poor of the country rather than line the pockets of international corporation; providing educational programmes to empower the most impoverished members of society; dismantling the corrupt state superstructure and creating a grassroots politics based on the enormous popular support he enjoys. These details avoid the central matter: the government’s decision not to renew RCTV’s broadcasting. The political bias at the heart of the defence is also evident in the depiction of RCTV and those who attacked Chávez’s actions; writing in the Guardian, Colin Burgon opens by describing the ‘neoconservative forces’ and ‘Christian right groupings’ mobilising against Chávez via a ‘pliant media’. The fact that RCTV is owned by a private, conservative media corporation (now operating from the US as RCTV International) is stressed, but again, the events surrounding the network’s closure are not the focus. These intensely emotive political appeals create a smokescreen that, while attempting to exonerate Chávez, is successful in convincing only those unaware of the wider context of censorship in Venezuelan.

A key ruse of pro-Chávez reporters was to depict human rights organisations as the dupes of anti-reformists and religious conservative groups within the country, and of the international corporations who suffer from Chávez’s defiant economic policies. In June, a post on the website of pro-Chávez group Hands off Venezuela likened reports by Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch to ‘battery artillery’ preceding the ‘counter-revolutionary offensive’. The poster failed to recognise that the RSF has and always will report on cases of freedom of expression abuses regardless of the politics of either perpetrator or victim. The extensive news coverage of Venezuela over the last few months may indeed indicate a serious political bias in the global media against revolutionary (and specifically leftist) governments. The error, however, was to align human rights organisations with the politically motivated groups behind this bias. Index on Censorship, along with Reporters without Borders and Human Rights Watch and any other organisation seriously concerned with preserving freedom of speech, will continue to denounce censorship; whether socialist revolutionary or ‘neo-con’ reactionary, the politics may differ but the essential act remains the same.

RCTV’s past is far from illustrious; its involvement in the coup that briefly deposed Chávez in April 2002 and cases of blatant misinformation when reporting on its failure make it clear that the station has been guilty of grave breaches of its broadcasting responsibilities. However, Chávez’s unprecedented personal involvement – five years later – in RCTV’s closure and his subsequent verbal attacks on opposition voices both inside Venezuela and in the international media (not to mention police’s aggression against protesters in the backlash) make equally clear that the decision not to renew the license were motivated more by political survival than a desire to protect broadcasting standards. As Chávez brings into force ‘cadenas’ laws forcing TV stations to broadcast his speeches, and announces plans to extend his presidency beyond his elected term, the press should join in condemning Chávez’s betrayal of the democratic ideals that swept him to power in the first place. Instead, many seem to have found themselves awkwardly justifying Chávez through statements that basically amount to ‘the ends justify the means’. The cause is the same: their support for Chávez’s supposed ‘socialist’ credentials and, more often than not, his defiant attitude to the US administration.

In their absurd defense of authoritarian methods of controlling opposition in the press, journalists and media bodies allowed political affiliations to obscure the facts of what is, to anyone familiar with the events of May 2007, a clear case of politically motivated censorship. The irony of watching ‘liberal’ reporters struggling to justify insidious media control and the end of political pluralism in the Venezuelan press was not, one hopes, lost on all their readers.