" -- Venezuela's government urged a probe of Time Warner Inc.'s Cable News Network and local television station Globovision for broadcasting ``lies'' and inciting violence against President Hugo Chavez.
Communications and Information Minister Willian Lara, who today asked the attorney general to start an investigation, said CNN last week portrayed a Mexican protest as being in Caracas and displayed images of Chavez next to an al-Qaeda leader. Globovision, a Caracas-based, 24-hour news channel, last week ran scenes from the 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II, which Lara said was incitement against Chavez.
`This is an effort to associate Hugo Chavez with two things: violence and death,'' Lara said in a televised news conference today in Caracas. ``It's an unacceptable piece of propaganda against the country, not real journalism.''
The probe is likely to fuel international and domestic concern that yesterday's government shutdown of Radio Caracas Television, the country's oldest and most-watched TV network, was just the first step toward imposing a gag on news media, Alberto Federico Ravell, Globovision's general manager, said in an interview. RCTV, which carried game shows, comedies, and soap operas, was the most widely viewed network critical of the government in its news-related programming.
NEW NEWS from the BBC:
Second Venezuela TV is under fire
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6699383.stm
Venezuela’s government has accused a TV station of inciting the assassination of President Hugo Chavez hours after taking another network off the air.
It said footage shown on Globovision implicitly called for Mr Chavez to be killed. The station denies the claim.
Police fired tear gas and plastic bullets as thousands protested across the country against the earlier closure of Venezuela’s oldest TV network.
Mr Chavez said Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) had tried to undermine his government.
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