ABC interview new Honduran “president”

Jeffrey Kofman from ABC interviewed the new Honduran leader. In this video he shares some of the interview details.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa on Honduras: CNN Video

Excellent interview with Vargas Llosa. His analysis of the geopolitical implications of the Honduras situation is super interesting. The video is in spanish.

Honduras Plans Media watchdog

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) voiced concern at a plan by the government of Honduras to sponsor the creation of a national news media watchdog whose objective would be to assess and keep an eye on editorial content.

Minister of the Presidency Enrique Flores Lanza announced that President Manuel Zelaya’s government is promoting “the setting up of a national watchdog on news media, in which different sectors of society could assess how news of national interest are handled objectively and professionally or on the contrary are manipulated, tendentious and irresponsible.”

IAPA President Enrique Santos Calderón, editor of the Bogotá, Colombia, newspaper El Tiempo, declared, “It is not the responsibility of the government to oversee, assess or evaluate the content of information that the media disseminate. When the authorities assume the role of watchdogs over the press they act contrary to freedom of expression and of the press guaranteed under the constitutions of our hemisphere, and such action thus becomes an interference.”

See full Press Release here.

The Presidency Minister went on to say that the Watchdog would be run by community organizations and would “determine which news media outlets become enemies of the general interests of the population by tendentiously manipulating information and systematically harming the image not of the government but of the country.”

This is a little scary and could lead to the demonization of the profession in Honduras. The Watchdog is not, in and of itself, a dangerous institution and could help point out irresponsible journalism. However, crossing the line from a watchdog to a censoring body may be a little too enticing for those who disagree with what the media outlets may be saying.