RECOGNITION OF EXCELLENCE NEWS – AT 9:24 P.M. ET:  Goofball Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is being given a journalism award in Argentina.  I know that we will all want to congratulate him on this achievement:

Hugo Chavez is getting a journalism award in Argentina.

The Venezuelan leader regularly clashes with critical media, but the University of La Plata is giving him its Rodolfo Walsh Prize on Tuesday for what it describes as his work giving people without a voice access to the airwaves and newspapers.

Chavez's government has bankrolled the growth of the Telesur network, providing a state-funded alternative to privately financed broadcast stations across Latin America.

He met Tuesday with his ally President Cristina Fernandez, who is trying to transform Argentina's communications industry through a law that would break up media monopolies and force cable TV providers to include channels run by unions, Indians and activist groups.

The two presidents also plan to sign commercial accords dealing with food, transport and energy, and to visit a state-run factory where Argentina will build ships for Venezuela's oil industry.

COMMENT:  What's next, a Peabody award?  The fact that a journalism faculty could give a prize to a thug like Chavez, who only days ago expressed his support for Syrian dictator Assad, and has made an alliance with the Iranian regime, demonstrates what we often suggest here – that the media, internationally, has often been part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We are spoiled in America by a free press which, despite all its faults, is still probably the best in the world, although far below what it should be.  We don't realize the level of corruption and ideological degeneracy that dominates news outlets in many countries, including those of Britain and Western Europe.

As for Argentina, it is a problematical country with a fascist past.  Cristina Fenandez, who succeeded her husband as president, is widely regarded as unstable, even, reportedly, by Hillary Clinton.  In America, Argentina is best known through the musical play, "Evita," and for having been beaten by Britain in the Falklands War.  But I understand it's a nice place to visit.

March 29, 2011