For soaps, known in Nicaragua as novelas, SSTV turns to. Venezuela for the ... government and FSLN officials appear at different locations around the country to.
CHRISTIANITY & CRISIS Vol. 44, No. 18 (12 November 1984), 425-426
They don’t all speak with one voice
Nicaragua’s media of communications By Andrew Reding THERE ARE TWO nationwide television channels, channels two and six, both operated by SSTV (Sistema Sandinista de Televisión) under the guidance of the FSLN. Surprisingly, about half the programming comes from the U.S. It is generally the most banal material we have to offer, typified by El Auto Fantástico (Knight Rider), and Salvage (with Andy Griffith). For soaps, known in Nicaragua as novelas, SSTV turns to Venezuela for the great favorite, Gracias por el Fuego (Thanks for the Fire). Mexico seems to be the main supplier of comedies, of the slapstick variety. Apart from occasional Cuban variety shows, there is little Soviet bloc entertainment. The evening news—the Noticiero Sandinista—comes on every night at 8 p.m., and lasts 45 minutes. It is principally anchored by women with excellent Spanish diction. Though clearly partisan, it is attractively presented, and includes an abundance of foreign news, much of it gleaned from such U.S. sources as the New York Times and Washington Post. There are occasional documentaries. Many of those that focus on Nicaragua are excellent. Others, Soviet bloc imports, rhapsodize about the accomplishments of socialism. There are few commercials, the time instead being taken up by public service briefs urging Nicaraguans to conserve energy and water, put matches in a safe place, join the Volunteer Police, support the war effort, register to vote, and the like. A nightly fiveminute short called Primero Nicaragua announces the opening of a new hospital, school, or geothermal plant, or shows a small rural village receiving electricity or running water for the first time, and concludes with “Viva Nicaragua Libre!” The most remarkable feature of SSTV, however, is its live programming. Every week government and FSLN officials appear at different locations around the country to answer questions from local audiences in a program called De Cara al Pueblo (Facing the People). SSTV also offers live, uninterrupted, and unedited coverage of special occasions, as for instance the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s visit to Managua. Jackson’s speeches on arrival at Sandino International Airport and before the Council of State were telecast in their entireties. So were the tough questions about religious freedom, the Miskitos, etc., posed to Daniel Ortega and Ernesto Cardenal at the Baptist Seminary by a visiting delegation of clergy from the U.S. Even former U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quainton, hardly an admirer of the Sandinistas, has said he was afforded extensive, free, and uncensored access to Sandinista radio and television. There are three national newspapers: La Prensa, Barricada, and El Nuevo Diario. Each can be obtained from newsboys just about anywhere in the country. All three are edited
by sons or brothers of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the editor of the pretriumph La Prensa, who became a national martyr when he was gunned down by Somoza in 1978. The posttriumph La Prensa was taken over by Pedro, Jr. after a family squabble. Since all but a small portion of the staff left with the slain editor’s brother, Xavier, to found El Nuevo Diario, the claim of today’s La Prensa to continuity with the original is at best tenuous. It has, however, continued to champion the cause of the opposition, albeit a different opposition, and in so doing it has become a test of the country’s will to maintain a free press. Pedro Jr. has shown himself willing to go to almost any length to undermine the Sandinistas. A case in point was the story of the “sweating virgin,” in which a stone statue of the Virgin Mary was photographed supposedly exuding beads of “sweat” in her suffering over the sinful course being taken by the Revolution. It was subsequently discovered that the statue had been refrigerated, then brought out into the warm moist air to create the desired effect. Yet just recently (Sept. 4), readers of La Prensa learned that Jesus, too, is now sweating, this time (miracle of miracles) from a painting in Panama. Contrary to the image cultivated abroad, La Prensa makes no effort to achieve balanced, objective coverage of world and national news. Like every other newspaper in Nicaragua, it is brashly partisan, trumpeting its editorial politics on every page. It would have you believe the Sandinistas haven’t a single achievement to their credit after five years, and that they rule exclusively by totalitarian repression. In this it is in close alliance with COSEP (the High Council of Private Enterprise), the U.S. Embassy, Arturo Cruz’s coalition of three parties that are boycotting the November 4 election, and Archbishop Obando y Bravo. All of these come together in the pages of La Prensa: COSEP, for instance, presents its laissez-faire economic ideology in a regular column entitled Ideas Para Todos (“Ideas for Everyone”), and Obando y Bravo’s positions are featured in a weekly column entitled La Voz de Nuestro Pastor (“The Voice of Our Shepherd”). La Prensa is virulently opposed to the theology of liberation and the progressive currents it has spawned in the Nicaraguan clergy. To counteract them, it regularly reprints articles from L’Osservator Romano and CELAM, the Latin American Bishops’ Conference, both representing right-wing positions in the Catholic Church. If La Prensa invariably grinds axes for the right wing, Barricada—the official newspaper of the FSLN—performs the same service for the party and the left. It is edited by Pedro Sr.’s younger son, Carlos, and reads like an upscale version of Granma, the Cuban Communist party newspaper. It details achievements in land reform and social services, announces the opening of new schools, health centers, hospitals, describes contra atrocities and successful military operations against them. It also supplies texts or summaries of major addresses by Sandinista leaders, as well as endless “interviews” with members of cooperatives, soldiers and their mothers, market vendors, workers, and students, where (as in Ronald Reagan’s version of the United States under his leadership) “never a discouraging word is heard.” Feature articles regularly praise the socialist achievements of Soviet bloc countries, but nothing favorable is ever said about China, Yugoslavia, or Albania. There is a lot of publicity in recognition of assistance from, and visits by, government delegations, celebrities, and nongovernmental organizations from the U.S., Western Europe, and Latin
America, but never any discussion of what these groups might have to offer in the way of good economic or political examples for Nicaragua. Where Barricada provides a mouthpiece for the ideological left and La Prensa for the ideological and religious right, El Nuevo Diario provides a voice for the religious left. It regularly features La Palabra de Dios en Nicaragua Libre (“The Word of God in Free Nicaragua”), containing biblical reflections from the Centro Ecuménico Antonio Valdivieso; it faithfully presents letters to the nation issued by the Christian base communities and other Christian groups; and it reports extensively on religious news. In its domestic reporting it performs an invaluable service for political pluralism by providing objective coverage of the platforms and campaigns of the parties opposing the FSLN in the November 4 election. Its foreign reporting is likewise valuable in that it concentrates more heavily on Latin American news and analysis than its competitors. Like Barricada, though, it is ridiculously soft in its coverage of the Soviet bloc and sometimes Panglossian in its treatment of the government. In spite of the limitations of all three papers, the marvel is that when you put them together, Nicaragua actually has—at least for the time being—a rather more open forum for news and ideas than one encounters in most of the rest of the world. It is rare indeed to find a country in which good and bad news about both major political-economic systems is readily available to all citizens through mass circulation dailies. And where else are the positions of the liberation theologians and their opponents afforded such equal exposure? It’s unusual also that the three papers do not ignore one another but engage in constant debate. In the Jeffersonian sense of the free exchange of ideas, Nicaragua is a particularly exciting place these days: it provides a rare meeting ground for ideas from differing political systems that generally seek to inoculate themselves from the perspectives and criticisms of their adversaries. I find it not only puzzling but inexcusable that correspondents for U.S. media seem never to notice this phenomenon. The differences between Barricada and El Nuevo Diario for example, are hardly subtle, but in most reporting I have seen they are lumped together as though they were clones. One must not lose sight of the fragility of the current arrangement: The loss of any of these papers would disequilibrate the whole, as each provides a vital and unique perspective, and each helps check the imbalances of the others. That is why censorship of La Prensa is such a litmus test for the openness of the Revolution, and why the present relaxation of censorship with the initiation of the electoral campaign is so significant. The more hardline Sandinistas would still like to shut down La Prensa; the Reagan administration and its allies within Nicaragua would be happy if the other two could be silenced, by whatever means. It would be tragic if public opinion in Nicaragua and the international community were to encourage either result.
