In this week's The Listening Post, Richard Gizbert takes a look at the Venezuelan referendum and asks what effect will it have on Hugo Chavez's ongoing war with the western media? We will also be reporting from Tinseltown's online picket line in the company of the writers currently on strike.

Venezuela was in the world's headlines this past week over the referendum vote called for, and lost, by Hugo Chavez, the country's president.

If the strike lasts long enough, it will affect TV, movie and computer screens

The coverage preceding the vote, and the analysis that followed, threw into sharp focus the bitter relationship between the outspoken president and the western media.

 

There were 69 amendments on the ballot, but the media outside Venezuela seemed fixated on only one of them, the one which would have abolished term limits for the presidency.

So this week we ask is Hugo Chavez getting a fair shake from the western news media? And if not, why not?

In our other big story this week, 12,000 television writers in the US are on strike and if it lasts long enough, it will affect TV, movie and computer screens around the world.

 

The central issue is online content, how much it is worth now and what it will be worth in the future and, in a plot twist, sometimes their online efforts publicising the strike are better than shows they are not working for.

Sudanese clerics are convinced that the incident was some kind of media conspiracy

In Newsbytes we return to Sudan. Khartoum may have forgiven Gillian Gibbons, the teddy bear teacher, but some Sudanese clerics are convinced that the whole incident was some kind of media conspiracy on the part of the West.

 

We also report on the return of American radio host Don Imus to the airwaves, in spite of having been previously taken off for making racist and sexist comments about a women's college basketball team.

 

We will also be hearing about the troubles of CNN because of a question asked on air by a retired military man, who was subsequently found to be involved with Hilary Clinton's campaign for the presidential nomination, during the recent Republican Party Youtube debate.

 

And for our video of the week we return to the striking writers in Hollywood. David Schlussel was one of many semi obscure writers in Hollywood. However his strike video 'Writer Boi' has propelled him to online fame and you can see why here.

 

Watch part one of this episode of The Listening Post on YouTube