Madam, - David Rolfe (June 7th) misses the point when he proposes that there is such media unison against President Chávez of Venezuela due to his supposed authoritarianism. He ignores the very point of your Editorial of May 30th: that actions such as the non-renewal of RCTV's licence must be understood in a wider context, in this case the involvement of RCTV in trying to overthrow a democratically elected president and his government.
Furthermore, if negative media coverage of Venezuela was motivated solely by concerns about Chávez's authoritarianism, as Mr Rolfe suggests, then where are the blanket condemnations of President Musharraf of Pakistan, an unelected ruler who came to power through a coup and is currently embroiled in a scandal involving the deposition of the chief justice of his country? One could cite many examples of dictators embraced by the West and left unmolested by Western media.
The blanket media condemnation of Chávez has little to do with concerns about democracy in Venezuela, which in fact is functioning rather well in many respects, and everything to do with the fact that the Venezuelan government is blocking the designs of powerful economic, especially oil, interests, mostly in the US, of which many of these media outlets are crucial parts. - Yours, etc,
Dr BARRY CANNON, Centre for International Studies, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Dublin 9.