Video of flag-waving Ortega supporters flooding the streets and shooting off homemade explosives filled screens. One television anchor called the election a “resounding victory” as festivities were underscored by the governing party’s rewrite of the song “Stand by Me,” despite Sony’s demand that it be pulled for copyright infringement. “Nicaragua is free and just wants jobs and peace,” so the chorus goes.
The jubilant imagery reflected one of Mr. Ortega’s biggest accomplishments in the five years since he returned to power: his tightened grip on the news media.
He has bolstered investment in traditional Sandinista Party outlets like the television station Multinoticias and Radio Ya, while cutting government advertising in non-Sandinista outlets. The former revolutionary now controls nearly half of Nicaraguan TV news stations; his children run Multinoticias and Channels 8 and 13, and Channel 6 is state-run. He has also started two news Web sites.
Political analysts say that the media power has given Mr. Ortega a tool to discredit critics, and that the positive exposure helped him finish with 63 percent of the vote, according to official returns, up from his plurality of 38 percent in 2006.
“There was a fundamental shift in Ortega’s image over five years, and one could argue that among contributing factors is his greater presence in the media,” said Arturo Cruz, a political analyst at Managua’s Incae Business School who served as Nicaragua’s ambassador to Washington in Mr. Ortega’s second term.
Mr. Ortega’s allies already run the electoral council (which oversees elections) and dominate the courts, and this month’s vote nearly doubled his party’s seats in Congress to 62, a majority big enough to rewrite the Constitution and change the limits on re-election he has challenged through the judiciary. With the media now one of the last bastions of opposition, said Robert J. Callahan, who left his post as the American ambassador to Nicaragua in July, the Ortega family’s growing influence recalls the way Anastasio Somoza used nepotism to control the economy before Mr. Ortega’s Sandinistas overthrew his dictatorship in 1979.
“Nicaraguans call this Somocismo without Somoza,” Mr. Callahan said, using a term that refers to Somoza’s style of ruling through favoritism.
Mr. Ortega’s chief spokeswoman, who is his wife, Rosario Murillo, did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Ortega has said right-wing “oligarchs” still have a stronghold in the media despite his advances. “The forces of savage capitalism have TV stations and a monopoly on newspapers,” he said in a speech in March.
He has had less success gaining control of newspapers, which have a smaller audience than TV and radio, especially among the half of Nicaragua’s population that lives in poverty and those who struggle with illiteracy.
That is not for a lack of trying. Mr. Ortega’s wife tried buying shares in El Nuevo Diario, one of the biggest newspapers in the country, after the government cut publicity that accounted for a quarter of the paper’s advertising revenue. Negotiations fell through when another buyer entered the fray.
Many suspect that Venezuelan aid is behind the Sandinista media conquest. The manager of Albanisa, a joint energy venture between the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan state oil companies, was sent back to Venezuela after he told reporters that the company had bought Channel 8 last year for $10 million. The company denied the comments.
Tracing the Venezuelan money is difficult because Mr. Ortega has refused to include a five-year, $1.6 billion Venezuelan aid package in the budget, where it would face congressional oversight.
The Ortega outlets cast him in a light that is benign, or at least innocuous.
When Mr. Ortega cast his vote, non-Sandinista reporters were cordoned off, while those for Multinoticias on the scene asked him about the weather.
On Sandinista-favored outlets, the first lady releases poetic communiqués and exclusive reports record debaucheries of Ortega critics. One report showed feminist opponents of an abortion ban sponsored by Mr. Ortega caught driving drunk after a “girls only” beach bash. Headlines describe Mr. Ortega’s political rivals as “parasites” and “promoters of death.”
Non-Sandinista reporters can face threats for their coverage of the government. One journalist, Silvia González, fled the country in September, saying she had received death threats after reporting for El Nuevo Diario that soldiers may have killed a rebel in northern Nicaragua who opposed Mr. Ortega’s re-election.
The Chamorro family, longtime foes of Mr. Ortega, come in for heavy scrutiny in his media.
The Chamorros run El Nuevo Diario and La Prensa, and La Prensa’s former publisher Violeta Chamorro defeated Mr. Ortega in the 1990 presidential race. Mr. Ortega’s government has investigated Ms. Chamorro’s younger son, Carlos Fernando, over money laundering accusations and last year bought the television station that had been broadcasting his newsmagazine, “Esta Semana,” which often investigated accusations of Sandinista corruption.
In seeking another channel to broadcast his show, Mr. Chamorro found that other outlets — including those owned by Ángel González, a Mexican media mogul whose stations are known for gentle treatment of the governing party — would not have him. Eventually, Channel 12 picked up the show. “There are outlets that aren’t controlled by the Ortega family but are co-opted nonetheless,” said Mr. Chamorro, a former Sandinista who became a journalist after Somoza gunmen assassinated his father, the editor of La Prensa, in 1978. “All spaces for critical journalism are shrinking dramatically in Nicaragua.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/world/americas/daniel-ortega-extends-control-to-nicaraguas-airwaves.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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