By Ingrid Bachmann
The president's ongoing battle against what he calls the "oligarchic media" has added a new front. The radio program "Suddenly with Chávez" (De Repente con Chávez) began broadcasting Feb. 8, and as its name suggests, it can go on the air at any moment, the Guardian and Times of London report.
The president already has a Sunday radio and TV show, which begins at 11 a.m. and lasts up to eight hours, and "Venezuelans are already accustomed to him interrupting scheduled programmes through a law which forces all radio and TV stations to transmit live those speeches he deems important," the Guardian's Rory Carroll explains.
The new program doesn't have a set schedule and may break onto the air at any time of the day or night, Chávez says, because "we have many things to report." Listeners will hear a harp playing folk music, and then the president's voice.
On the inaugural broadcast, Chávez called on Venezuelans to conserve electricity, saying the country is experiencing its worst drought in nearly a century, The Guardian says.
See the Spanish version of this post.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
