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MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA:
New Regional
Network of the South is Born
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) - Telesur,
a regional public TV network
envisioned as a Latin American
version of the Arab world's Al
Jazeera broadcasting group, was
officially launched Tuesday at a
ceremony in the Venezuelan
capital.
The fledgling broadcasting
company is jointly owned by
Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay and
Venezuela.
"After 513 years of looking at
ourselves through foreign eyes,
we Latin Americans are beginning
to see ourselves through our own
eyes," said the director of the
new regional network, Aram
Arahonian, a Uruguayan
journalist based in Venezuela
for the last 18 years, at the
official ceremony.
Venezuelan Information Minister
Andrés Izarra, the chairman of
Telesur, reported that the new
network has already invested
roughly 10 million dollars in
facilities, equipment, and the
leasing of a satellite.
The first brief broadcast on
Monday consisted of a 10-minute
video reflecting what Telesur
aims to be, nationally televised
in Venezuela and aired on TV
networks in other countries of
the region.
These first images emphasised
the social struggles and
progressive movements of Latin
America, including statements
from indigenous organisations,
scenes of street protests
against free-market economic
policies and U.S. meddling, and
footage of students attending
schools in poor, working-class
neighbourhoods.
Also shown were photographs of
leftist icons like legendary
Cuban-Argentine revolutionary
Ernesto "Che" Guevara and former
Chilean socialist president
Salvador Allende, overthrown in
a 1973 military coup led by
General Augusto Pinochet.
Telesur "will indeed be biased,
towards promoting Latin American
integration, diversity and
plurality, and against the
uniform point of view imposed
through the privately owned
media's control of information,"
Aharonian told IPS.
The Telesur director added that
the new network is a response to
the current "media latifundia",
an allusion to the system of
land ownership in which enormous
areas are controlled by a single
private owner.
Left-leaning Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez has been a
driving force behind Telesur. He
has promoted the initiative at
numerous international forums
over the past year, asking, "Why
do we have to be told everything
we know about ourselves by a
network from the North, like
CNN? Why this media
dictatorship?"
When former Ecuadorian president
Lucio Gutiérrez was removed by
Congress, Chávez admitted he
found out about it on CNN.
In response to a reporter's
question of whether the new
network will be fully devoted to
spreading the messages of state
TV networks in the participating
countries, Aharonian stressed
that if it were only used to
broadcast speeches by Chávez and
other presidents, "we would have
to take it for granted that no
one would watch it. If this were
to turn into a propaganda tool,
we would all leave."
The brief promotional segment
that premiered Monday will be
repeated in a number of
countries until Jul. 24 - the
anniversary of the birth of
Simón Bolívar, founding father
of South American independence
and fervent proponent of the
integration of the region's
nations - when full-length
programmes will begin to be
aired, followed by 24-hour
broadcasting as of
mid-September.
News and current affairs will
account for 40 percent of all
programming, according to the
Telesur board of directors,
which includes Beto Almeida from
Brazil, Jorge Botero from
Colombia and Ovidio Cabrera from
Cuba.
In addition to a full-length
newscast, a morning news and
analysis show and other current
events programming, brief news
updates will be aired every half
hour.
Other regular segments will
include a showcase of Latin
American filmmaking, past and
present, entitled Memories in
Development (a play on the title
of the classic Cuban film
Memories of Underdevelopment),
and another featuring movies
from non-Latin American
countries other than the United
States, called Nojolivud (the
Spanish phonetic spelling of "No
Hollywood").
Another segment, Memories of
Fire, will be entirely devoted
to documentaries. "Last year,
there were 646 documentaries
filmed in Latin America,
according to the figures we have
gathered, but only 21 of them
have ever been shown. We will be
providing a space for all of
these productions," said
Aharonian.
There are also plans for
regularly scheduled shows
dedicated to music, regional
travel and tourism destinations,
agriculture, and survival in the
large urban centres of Latin
America.
Telesur plans to air programming
produced by both privately owned
and national and local public TV
stations, as well as community,
university and independent
producers. The network will also
have a branch devoted to
promoting regional TV production
dubbed the Latin American
Content Factory.
But while the programming
directors will be open to
submissions from all sources,
their decisions will be based on
high standards of quality in
terms of both content and form,
said Aharonian.
When Telesur is fully
functioning at the end of the
year, viewers will be able to
tune in throughout the Americas,
in western Europe, and in the
northwest tip of Africa,
according to the network
management.
"This is a challenge we have
always dreamed of pursuing,"
said Gabriel Marotto, the
Argentine media undersecretary.
"We are counting on providing a
different vision of our reality,
and on the fact that this will
be a TV network run by states,
and not by governments," he
added.
Venezuela owns 51 percent of the
shares in the Empresa
Multiestatal Telesur, Compañía
Anónima, as the Telesur
broadcasting company is
officially known, while
Argentina owns 20 percent, Cuba
19 percent, and Uruguay 10
percent.
"But more than a financial or
commercial operation, the
participating states are taking
part in Telesur for a political
purpose, which is to foster the
integration of our peoples,"
stressed Izarra.
In view of the notable absence
of Brazil - which has come to
play a leading role in regional
integration - Izarra noted that
the project is still open to the
incorporation of all other Latin
American nations.
Venezuela provided the start-up
financing for the network, while
the other shareholding partners
are contributing programming,
equipment and staff, he added.
Botero, the head of news and
current affairs programming,
reported that local bureaux have
already been opened in Brasilia,
Bogota, Caracas and La Paz, and
will soon be followed by others
in Buenos Aires, Havana, Mexico
City, Montevideo and Washington,
D.C.
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