Honduran Police Detain Six Television Journalists

Source: Bloomberg

Honduran Police Detain Six Television Journalists
By Jens Erik Gould

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- Honduran police detained six employees of the regional television network Telesur and Venezuela state-run station Venezolana de Television last night, according to Angel Vargas, first secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Tegucigalpa.

The journalists were taken to police headquarters for five hours and their passports were confiscated, Vargas said. They were then taken to their hotel, given back their passports and told not to leave until immigration officials arrived, he said.

“They told us we should leave the country because our security wasn’t guaranteed and we were at risk here,” said Larry Sanchez, a Telesur technician who was among those who were detained. “‘We have intelligence and we’re following you,’ they said.”

It was the second time that Venezuelan journalists had been detained in Honduras since a June 28 coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya as president, Vargas said. Honduran soldiers arrested Telesur journalists at gunpoint in their hotel rooms on June 29 and later let them go, he said.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aMdwXU4GsBms

Skewed coverage has followed Honduran coup
By Carlos Lauría/Americas Senior Program Coordinator

The ongoing political crisis following the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya on June 28 has damaged the press freedom climate in Honduras. Complying with orders by caretaker leader Roberto Micheletti, Honduran security forces shut down local broadcasters, blocked transmissions of international news networks, and briefly detained journalists in the aftermath of the coup, CPJ research shows. But part of the damage was self-inflicted: Some media outlets have slanted coverage to favor the coup leaders.
Alexis Quiroz, executive director with the Committee for Freedom of Expression (C-Libre), a local press freedom group, said the situation remains unstable. "The curfew imposed by the new government has created serious restrictions for local reporters," Quiroz told CPJ. But Quiroz also noted that some media outlets have favored Micheletti. On Sunday, when the military blocked Zelaya's return flight and opened fire on his supporters at the Tegucigalpa airport, most television stations broadcast an official event instead, he said.

Manuel Torres, an independent journalist and local media analyst, went as far as to say that most Honduran media have acted in a partisan way against Zelaya. "The ousted president," said Torres, "had a contentious relationship with the press and frequently used charged rhetoric" in responding to criticism in the media. Torres charged that media bias has led to manipulation of facts, the presentation of misleading information, and the use of selective censorship. "The press ignored the facts, misused sources, and transformed speculation into information," Torres told CPJ.

The Associated Press has reported that most TV stations have devoted coverage to protests favoring Micheletti, while ignoring those supporting Zelaya. Radio reports, the AP said, were more balanced but still delivered more information on the de facto government.

"The behavior of the Honduran media during the coup bears a resemblance to what happened in Venezuela , ignoring facts or only broadcasting the views of the new officials," said Arturo Wallace Salinas, who covers Central America for the BBC. When Venezuela's Hugo Chávez

More:
http://cpj.org/blog/2009/07/skewed-coverage-has-followed-honduras-coup.php

anti-democratic, or authoritarian, or dictatorial. In fact Telesur, a project of the Chavez government to improve news coverage in Venezuela and in the region, has proven to be courageous and dauntless in its defense of a free press and of democracy in Honduras throughout this fascist coup. That is why its reporters and technicians have been repeatedly arrested and harassed!

Latin American TV is worse even than our own, as to corpo/fascist domination. Free speech requires balance and diversity; busing up of monopolies; and well-run public stations, to provide the competition of depth and focus on public affairs, to rival commercial media, which tends to be dominated by multinational corporations, with very anti-democratic agendas--unless they are kept in rein by strong regulation and competition.

Viva Telesur! They were the only ones that had a camera on the horrors at the airport! Everybody else fled when the bullets started flying.

I watched it live for several hours.

TeleSUR and VT are Bolivarian propaganda stations, but denying them access is wrong. Freedom of the press needs to be respected regardless of what viewpoints the journalists are employing.

A report that is false, for example? Thanks.

White, sliver/grey, and black.

White: Simply tell the truth, which can be used to inform, embarrass, and harass opponents.
Grey: Slant/spin the truth, using a mixture of lies, card-stacking, scapegoating, testimonials, limited perspective, (etc) to further a message.
Black: Outright lies and gross distortions, disinformation.

White: "The military arrested, and exiled, a democratically elected president."
Grey: "The military illegally arrested the president."
Black: "The military took over the Honduran government."

As far as their goals, I suggest you check their websites, they are very much media companies with a political mission.

that Telesur's reporting is inaccurate or false in any way.

You're asking for inaccuracy? Telesur has described the situation, repeatedly, as a "military coup", rather than "a legal arrest and questionably illegal exile ordered by Honduran courts, backed by their congress, and enforced by their military".

The former over-simplified phrasing misleads readers into thinking that a military organization took over the country. It's blatantly false and inaccurate, because it oversimplifies a complex situation and willfully omits a number of important details required in understanding the situation.

I think we're done. This is just tedious.

I suppose there are some real Pinochetistas around, however.

I bet you think Radio and TV Marti are fair and balanced as well.

Shutting them down, jamming them, or refusing to give licenses to them, (etc.) is still undemocratic and morally wrong.

The solution to disagreeable speech is more speech, not censorship.

Honduras lifts curfew 2 weeks after military coup
By JUAN ZAMORANO – 1 hour ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduran authorities on Sunday lifted a curfew imposed since the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya two weeks ago — a sign the interim government is trying to restore normality to life in the crisis-gripped country.

In a nationally broadcast announcement, the interim government said the curfew had reached its objective to "restore calm" and curb crime.

The de facto administration of Roberto Micheletti imposed the curfew after soldiers escorted Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint on June 28, plunging Honduras into political turmoil.

~snip~
Juan Barahona, leader of the Zelaya support base, said officials were under pressure from bars and other businesses hurt by the curfew.

"This is to give the world the impression that there is an environment of freedom in the country," even though that is not the case, he said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been the most vociferous defender of Zelaya, said Sunday that Micheletti was behind the brief detention of journalists for two of his country's state television channels, VTV and Telesur.

Venezuela's ABN state news agency reported that the seven were detained Saturday and later released after Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro made efforts to secure their freedom.

ABN later reported that a crew working for VTV was expelled from Honduras.

Ariel Vargas, an official at the Venezuelan Embassy in Honduras, told ABN the TV crew was escorted to the airport. Honduran authorities threatened the journalists at gunpoint earlier and confined another TV crew from Telesur to a hotel in Tegucigalpa, according to ABN.

The interim government's minister of information, Rene Zepeda, told The Associated Press he had no information about the alleged detentions. He denied authorities are trying to censor the news media, saying "what we want is peace" in Honduras. Zepeda commented prior to the report of the VTV crew's alleged expulsion.

More:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD99D7H680

Calling the military coup a military coup.

School of the Americas Watch
http://www.soaw.org/

by saying the six Venezuelan journalists had been detained to "corroborate their participation in the theft of a vehicle."

(Yeah, a television team does not have anything better to do in the midst of a coup than to go steal a car.) :rofl:


Policía Nacional. Hector Iván Mejía, vocero de la Secretaría de Seguridad afirmó que seis periodistas venezolanos fueron detenidos en un hotel capitalino para corroborar su participación en el robo de un vehículo

http://farm3.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/2055/2231609549_db68b0381a.jpg

Those pesky Telesur reporters.

The quality of that lie tells you the people running this coup don't believe it matters if the world believes them on these reporters or not, because they intend to keep control of the government one way or another. They're going to have to suspend the coming election, then!