Oswaldo Lopez, who wrote the article, said political cadres should have enough preparation not to be seduced by ink, paper and easy fixes.

According to the Mayor, the owners of Notitarde, the Degwitz family want to sell and the Red Mayor reports that he has put a proposition to a group of Chavist businessmen to buy the paper.

If the tabloid is bought, Parra is quoted as saying, it would not become a "redder than red" Notitarde but rather a newspaper that would be critical, impartial and balanced. "We do not want to turn it into a Chavista newspaper but something like the Las Ultimas Noticias national daily, which is objective and which is not anti-Chavista."

Seriously, the Mayor commented, he already has a list of future owners and a sale is certainly on the cards.

Lopez wrote that it doesn’t take much imagination to see President Chavez issuing decrees on national TV to buy out the El Nacional broadsheet at $80 million, El Universal $75 million and even Globovision at $135 million.

In other words, Lopez argued, the government could buy out the main opposition media, which, according to Mayor Parra, is the most intelligent way of ending media opposition.

Sorry, retorts the writer, such a solution shows a lack of ideological force because it presupposes that everything can be arranged by cash payments and he asks what could be done with $30 million, posing the question whether that amount of money had been sunk in the President's new newspaper, El Correo del Orinoco.

Then again, some Bolivarians deny the very existence of Chavista businessmen, while others contend that they are a necessary evil in the early stages of the construction of Socialism

Patrick J. O'Donoghue
news.editor@vheadline.com