Media Mogul Learns to Live With Chávez

MEDIA MOGUL LEARNS TO LIVE WITH CHÁVEZ
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Simon Romero]
Gustavo A. Cisneros was a leader of Venezuela’s opposition to President Hugo Chávez. Now he and his television network, Venevisión, has become a target of the same opposition he once championed. Venevisión, critics say, is now positioned to benefit from President Chávez’s recent decision to push the station’s main rival, RCTV, off the public airwaves. Mr. Cisneros, 62, in a rare interview here, bridled at such charges. “If you go off the air, then democracy loses,” he said, defending his reconciliation with Mr. Chávez and pointing to fears that Venevisión could yet suffer the same fate as RCTV, which was forced to stop broadcasting in late May. “We decided that we needed to pull through,” said Mr. Cisneros, citing advice on the matter from Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican writer, who is an outspoken critic of Mr. Chávez. “And the way to pull through was to say, ‘Enough, we can't be part of the story or play a role in politics but we have to report the story every day.’ ” Gone, Mr. Cisneros said, was Venevisión’s “Fox News approach.” Executives replaced morning talk shows with astrology programs and gave priority to nightly soap operas over critical news programs. By the time of the presidential election last December, the shift was an about-face from Venevisión’s previous coverage. Venevisión devoted 84 percent of its political coverage to Mr. Chávez’s positions and only 16 percent to the opposition, according to a European Union report on the elections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/world/americas/05venez.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(requires registration)