Hurricane Hugo

The bulging ranks of cable news critics saw their ranks grow by another member yesterday: None other than Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Welcome, El Presidente. Now settle down.

According to various news reports, Chavez – who has already has shut down one popular TV network, with another in his crosshairs – announced he is going to sue CNN International for placing his image next to Osama bin Laden during a recent news package.

[Venezuelan] Information Minister, William Lara, showed a press conference what he said was CNN footage of Mr. Chavez juxtaposed with images of Osama bin Laden, saying: “CNN broadcast a lie which linked President Chavez to violence and murder." He also accused CNN of dishonesty for using footage of a Mexican demonstration in a story about the current Venezuelan disturbances.

CNN has already aired a correction and apologized for the Mexican footage, adding that it is not “engaged in a campaign to discredit or attack Venezuela.” To the contrary, CNN was actually singled out for praise by Hugo Chavez in 2003, when he lauded their coverage of his standing up to a coup. (A coup fomented, in part, by the Radio Caracas Television network he just took off the air.)

But as far as the practice of placing Chavez’s image next to bin Laden is concerned, CNN is defending itself. And rightfully so.

[CNN International VP Tony] Maddox said that “unrelated news stories can be juxtaposed in a given segment of television news in the same way that a newspaper page or a website can have news items with no relation to each other placed side by side".

According to all the news reports examined by Public Eye, at no point in the on-air comments were the two leaders identified as partners or friends – they were merely names in the news. Additionally, the fact that they are globally known for their distaste for America makes the side-by-side positioning even more justifiable.

A few years ago, I was on CNN discussing the lack of coverage given to the civil war in Congo. Watching the tape later, I noticed that at one point the caption underneath my face read “Does Anybody Care?” Not the sort of message I wanted attached to my image, but this sort of thing happens.

Like many media critics, Hugo Chavez sees a political agenda where there probably isn't one. He is taking on the media in his homeland with a singular zest that troubles everyone from the U.S. Senate to Amnesty International, and now he's attacking one-time friend CNN for simple nonthreatening visual shorthand. Were Chavez a blogger or a dissident, it would be easier to dismiss his views. But given that he’s the President of Venezuela and in the middle of a wholesale repudiation of a free press in his country, the fact that he’s taking on an American-based media corporation may be the wake-up call we need to take a closer look at what’s happening below the equator -- and under our noses.