Welcome Telesur: Notes on Media from Below
July 24, 2005
Gary Webb y Simón Bolívar, Presentes
Please distribute widely
The same Commercial Media mercenaries who spent recent years trying to convince the public that Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez is not popular (and therefore illegitimate) have now changed their tune. Gone are the days when the Juan
Foreros of big media told us that “Mr. Chávez has… managed to rankle nearly every sector – from the church to the press
to the middle class” as he did three weeks prior to the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela. Win enough elections, and I
guess that dog eventually don’t hunt. The new spin is that the man in the red beret is more dangerous than ever
precisely because he is too popular, not only in Venezuela, but throughout América. Now it’s his “ideas” that must be
stopped.
The catalyst for the current round of shrieking is the advent of the regional TV network Telesur, funded by the
governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba. Telesur began broadcasting at 12:15 p.m. today, the 222nd
birthday of Simón Bolívar, The Great Liberator who dreamed of a united América (“he is not dead,” Chávez said at a
ceremony earlier today. “He has returned”). Not since the 1981 launch of MTV has a television network received so much
attention before it hit the airwaves.
What’s at stake is much bigger than one man (Chávez) or one TV station (Telesur). An authentic rebellion against the
real center of power in this world (that is to say, against the Commercial Media) has finally gained traction. We, of
the Authentic Journalism renaissance, may indeed look back at this moment someday as having brought a decisive, historic
shift in the saga of how humans evolved around media and vice versa. The Civil War of Journalism has arrived: media from
below against media from above. A photograph made of words is therefore in order, to explain the context and to set the
stage. Lights! Camera! Action! Good morning, América. You’re on the air!
Read about how this renaissance came to be from Chiapas to Caracas... and participate in the discussion on building
authentic media from below...
From somewhere in a country called América,
Al Giordano
Correspondent
The Narco News Bulletin