Maegan told you earlier this morning about Hugo Chavez‘s landslide presidential win in Venezuela. According to AP, U.S. Spanish-language network Telemundo also wanted to tell you about it, but didn’t manage to, since they were apparently “forced” off the air during the in situ coverage of the elections in Caracas:

Officials identifying themselves as members of a state regulatory agency forced the U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Telemundo to halt transmission Sunday of its presidential election coverage.

“We’re surprised by this,” said Pablo Iacub, a member of Telemundo’s eight-person team, which arrived last week. “We only want to do our work,” he said by telephone.

At least six people who identified themselves as members of the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL), which regulates electronic media in Venezuela, arrived Sunday afternoon at the hotel from which Telemundo had been transmitting since Friday, said Iacub.

The officials said the network needed permission to transmit and lacking such could not, he said. Iacub said he was unaware of such a requirement but that the Telemundo journalists were accredited with Venezuela’s national elections council.

Iacub said the Telemundo team asked how they could obtain permission and, after an hour, were told that they would not be able to transmit.

Sounds a little counterproductive, as you’d think that the Chavez administration would jump at the chance to show Latinos in the U.S. he’s still boss. Last year around this time he was playing Santa to Latinos in NYC, so it’s clear he considers U.S. Latinos in his PR strategy.

Via / Chron.com