By Isabela Fraga
Venezuela's Information Minister Ernesto Villegas announced on Wednesday, Feb. 20, the establishment of the new Bolivarian Communication and Information System, reported teleSUR. According to the minister, the new apparatus should generate content different from that found in a capitalist culture and strive for "true independence."
According to VTV, Villegas also said that the new system responds to a request by ailing President Hugo Chávez that the State's communication efforts not be limited to television or print publications.
Chávez "called for a communications team on every block in Venezuela with a megaphone, a community newspaper or some other outlet to express the people's reality," the minister said at the launch of Open Digital Television in Venezuela, reported the newspaper El Nacional.
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.
