The Magic Realism of Venezuelan Television

The camera panned across an ocean of faces and banners, a political rally of noise, colour and passion cascading into Caracas. Venezuela's privately run 24-hour news network, Globovisión, carried continuous live coverage of what it called a historic mobilisation of those determined to oust President Chávez in Sunday's election.

The camera zoomed in on a woman draped in the national flag. "This government is corrupt, they're robbing our money. We need to reclaim our democracy and our freedom," she shouted, and people around her cheered.

Back to the studio for an interview with a political scientist who said this display of people power, combined with opinion poll trends, spelled electoral doom for Mr Chávez.

Or perhaps not. Hop to channel 8, the state-run Venezolana de Televisión, and an aerial view of the rear of the rally showed pockets of marchers on a mostly empty avenue.

Hardly dramatic, so the channel cut to a live feed from western Venezuela where Mr Chávez was inaugurating a new metro station and listing government achievements. "Energy, water, gas, satellite technology, education, it's all part of a grand strategy." Back in the studio and analysts agreed that opinion polls guaranteed the president a landslide.

Welcome to Venezuelan magic realism, a journalistic genre which jumbles fact and fantasy and turns news into folklore. With camera angles manipulating crowd sizes and pundits massaging statistics television channels are portals to two different worlds. One depicts the president as a communist demagogue who steals elections, terrorises the country and will receive an overdue comeuppance on Sunday. The other casts him as a democratic saviour of the poor who will overcome lackeys of US imperialism to win a third term.

Some newspapers have softened criticism of Mr Chávez, allegedly because government advertising swamps their pages. Eleazar Rangel, the director of Ultimas Noticias, a relatively neutral daily, denied that. "We do not self-censor ourselves."

But although the campaign has been peaceful so far, the airwaves have set the stage for a bitter aftermath to Sunday's poll, with the losing side almost certain to cry foul and reject the winner as a vote-rigging usurper.