Caracas Chronicles

Jackson Diehl has a predictably apocalyptical article in today’s Washington Post about the new charges being leveled against Globovisión’s owners, Guillermo Zuluaga and Nelson Mezerhane.

While I was reading it, I was struck by the fact that the all-opposition-news channel remains, in effect, rudderless. With the government raiding Mezerhane’s businesses and Zuluaga likely applying for political asylum, what obstacle is currently preventing Lina Ron from hosting Buenas Noches?

In other words, why is Globovisión still on the air?

We’ve been hearing about how Globovisión is about to be shut down for years now. But in reality, threats and intimidation have come and gone, and the station remains on the air, valiantly offering up its essential, peculiarly Venezuelan mix of news and propaganda.

In a country whose institutions bend to each of Chávez’s whims, it’s a small miracle the company is alive at all.

Or is it?

Perhaps it’s all part of a plan. Because, come to think of it, the more Globovisión itself becomes the story, the more opposition politicians are forced to talk about the threats looming agains it, the more the Jackson Diehls and Mary Anastasia O’Gradys of the world are forced to talk about Zuluaga and his impending doom, the less time, money and attention they will have to talk about things like this and this.

Deadly simple.