Telesur: A Counter-Hegemonic Project to Compete with CNN and Univisión

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Gustavo Cisneros and Bush's nightmare...

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Telesur: A Counter-Hegemonic Project to Compete with CNN and Univisión

Paralleling the Arab Al Jazeera, Telesur will be something like Al Bolívar. Aram Aharonian, the Uruguayan journalist who will be the general director of this continental channel says it will be, "the first counter-hegemonic telecommunications project known in South America."

Telesur is intended to become a strong competitor to CNN and Univisión. Under the name Televisora del Sur (Television of the South), the Venezuelan-Argentinean-Brazilian-Uruguayan multinational will follow strict regulations regarding profit value, competitiveness and commercialization. According to plans, it will begin by broadcasting over one channel throughout South America, via satellite from its headquarters in Caracas in May.

Two veteran journalists involved in the direction of this project are touring México, in search of useful relations for a television channel that adheres to past and present values of progressive journalism: Aharonian, who fought in the struggles against the southern cone dictators, and who is now the director of the newspaper Questión of Caracas and a collaborator of the cyber-journal Red Voltaire and Jorge Enrique Botero, a Colombian television producer and author of two documentaries "Como voy a Olvidarte” (How Will I Forget You) and "Bacano salir en Diciembre" about those kidnapped by the FARC during the Colombian war. He won the Premio Nuevo Periodismo (New Journalism Award) for both.

Telesur, explains its director, is “a strategic project that was born out of the need to give voice to Latin Americans confronted by an accumulation of thoughts and images transmitted by commercial media and out of the urgency to see ourselves through our own eyes and to discover our own solutions to our problems. If we do not start there, the dream of Latin American integration will be no more than a salute to the flag.”

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1388