[NYTr] Díaz Rangel to Reporters Without Borders: 'Who pays you?'

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Progreso Weekly - Nov 29, 2007
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=249&Itemid=1

Díaz Rangel to Reporters Without Borders: 'Who pays you?'

Originally published by Aporrea

CARACAS, Nov. 21, 2007 -- On the eve of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez's official visit to Paris, on Nov. 20, 2007, the organization
Reporters Without Borders sent a letter to French President Nicolas
Sarkozy.

According to Reporters Without Borders' official Internet site, that
organization "struggles to repulse censorship and combats the laws
designed to restrict freedom of the press," which, in their view, would
give them carte blanche to interfere with, criticize and judge whatever
happens in any part of the planet.

The message sent to the French president says that "Reporters Without
Borders has stressed the extent of the control the Venezuelan chief of
state has on the media sector, inasmuch as he has at his disposal seven
television stations, about 20 radio stations, the telephone operation
CANTV, the main national newspaper Últimas Noticias and about 60 local
newspapers."

As to the above, Eleazar Díaz Rangel, editor of Últimas Noticias, says
that "out of everything that appears in that paragraph, the only true
statement is that Últimas Noticias is the main national newspaper.
Everything else is either exaggerated or false, such as when they say
that Chávez 'has at his disposal' Últimas Noticias.

"This newspaper is considered, according to a Datanálisis poll, as a
balanced periodical, with a 74.5 percent rating (16 percent pro-Chávez,
6 percent against Chávez)," Díaz Rangel continues, "and I don't have to
remind you about the denunciations we have made in corruption cases,
and the criticism that the President himself and some of his ministers
have leveled at us.

"Our editorial policy to maintain that balance and be true to an
essential ethical principle -- the truth -- separates us from that
selfish classification."

In conclusion, the editor of Últimas Noticias asks: "What authority do
the Reporters Without Borders have to evaluate the Venezuelan media?
Before they do so, they should tell us two things: One, who bankrolls
them? Who pays for their many trips to Venezuela? And two: Who elected
them to that organization?"