As national editor, I was often required to include blatantly pro-government feature stories and interviews, and reporters were encouraged to write them. One such reporter, Pacifica Goddard, was pushed to write a gushing piece about the National Reserves, who were beginning training. She was loathe to do so, but obliged. I was expected to publish this story, as well as regular interviews with a Chavista economist named Eugenio Mora. “This really has to go in today,” was a phrase I heard repeatedly in regards to such material. It was never quite clear who was dictating the order, and there was no discussion of why the piece in question should take precedence over other, more newsworthy items. A month after I left the paper, my successor, Chris Poole, wrote a detailed letter expressing his indignation at being required to include one such interview, in which Mora called on the government to take legal action against a daily newspaper columnist who’d been accusing the government of corruption. Poole-who has since left The Daily Journal-planned to circulate this letter around the office, but the editor told him if he did, he’d be fired.


Others were told to negatively slant or limit their coverage of opposition party members. One editor had his photograph of choice - picturing an opposition mayor of the Caracas municipality of Baruta, Capriles Radonski-removed because, he was told, the newspaper didn’t want to provide too much space for any one politician and his opinion. Dan Cancel, who covered national news at The Daily Journal during the change of ownership, was once asked to write what was essentially a “slander piece” about Radonski, calling his policy of placing stickers on the houses of wealthy Caraqueños who hadn’t paid their taxes “unconstitutional.” Cancel, who ended up writing a short piece about the decision, with no mention of the Constitution, said he felt as though he was being used. “I was pretty angry, and my instinct was obviously to quit,” says Cancel. “But there aren’t that many options in Caracas.” He did eventually leave when another opportunity presented itself.


López maintains warm relationships with many in the Chávez administration; the Boleita beehive is often visited by the likes of National Assembly Deputy Luis Tascón, author of the infamous “Tascón List,” which publicly named everybody who signed the recall referendum on Chávez’s presidency. López is especially close with the mayor of Caracas, Juan Barreto, who heads a government-owned regional television station called Ávila TV. López’s first editor-in-chief once worked in the mayor’s office.


Even Chávez has publicly recognized López, giving him a shout-out over an open microphone at a press conference. “Look, there’s Julio Augusto!” Chávez was reported to have said in the Spanish-language magazine, Exceso. “How’ve you been?”


Meanwhile, however, other members of the media are receiving very different treatment, especially the 53-year-old Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV. Chávez faulted the station for supporting the attempted 2002 coup, during which he was briefly ousted from office. Many private media outlets—particularly those that Chávez has referred to as the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”—failed to cover the president’s return to power. Since, two of these stations—Televen and Venevision—have changed their editorial line dramatically, leaving just two opposition-aligned networks highly critical of the Chávez regime: RCTV, and Globovision, which is only broadcast in Caracas and Carabobo state.


Just after Christmas, during a post-reelection speech, Chávez announced that he wouldn’t renew RCTV’s broadcasting license, which he claimed was due to expire at the end of May; RCTV argued that its license was valid until 2012. “There will be no new concession for that coup-plotting television channel,” he declared to the troops assembled at Fuerte Tiuna, a Caracas military base. The statement set off a verbal firestorm. Venezuela’s top Catholic prelates, watchdog groups, such as Reporters Without Borders, and the Organization of American States all expressed grave concern. Chávez, backed by his Minister of Communication and Information, responded with a barrage of insults. Reactions on the streets were mixed. RCTV workers and supporters, warning that other news stations could be next, staged numerous demonstrations. Meanwhile, at an anti-Bush rally staged during the U.S. president’s Latin America tour, many women—sporting Chavista red from head to toe—grasped signs that read “RCTVas,” or “RCTV, go.” That channel is just “sex and more sex,” one woman told me.


And a few days ago, on May 27, RCTV was replaced by a state-owned television station called Televisora Venezolana Social. Protestors are taking to the streets; clashes with police have resulted in injuries on both sides and nearly two hundred demonstrators have been arrested. Press freedom groups continue to express concern about the decision’s implications. In early January, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists sent a delegation to meet with government officials, members of the private-and state-owned-press, and media analysts. They were not happy with what they found. “We have reviewed all the documents, and the government is clearly not following procedure,” says Carlos Lauria, CPJ’s Americas program coordinator and a member of the delegation. “The state has a right to assign and regulate broadcast concessions, but they should do it following protocol.” This is not the first move by Chávez that has troubled such groups. In 2005, changes to the penal code that made it easier to prosecute journalists, and the introduction of The Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television—aimed at protecting children from violent and sexual content—was faulted for vague wording that enables the government to prosecute media at its discretion. Among other offenses, the government contended that RCTV violated this law by broadcasting programming it publicly decried as “pornography.” Media analysts in Venezuela, however, say that RCTV was targeted less for its programming than for its political stance and widespread influence.