BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. Tensions are once again flaring on the ultra-polarized streets of Venezuela. Opponents of President Hugo Chavez have gathered millions of signatures in support of a referendum on the ouster of Chavez, but the government proceeded to disqualify hundreds of thousands of those signatures for technical reasons, and the opposition is crying foul. If you tune in to any of Venezuela's privately-owned TV channels, you'll hear news anchors railing against a dictatorial regime that has stolen an election before a vote was ever cast. State TV, unsurprisingly, offers a different perspective. But lately a third option has been emerging in the working class neighborhoods of Caracas and elsewhere in the countryside. [MUSIC - VENEZUELAN RADIO CLIP]

INTERPRETER: A campaign to set up radio stations in Venezuelan communities. The media is under the control of the bosses and the coup organizers in their campaign of terror and lies. They're disseminating hate and calling for sedition and the reactionary overthrow of President Chavez.

BOB GARFIELD:New York Times reporter Juan Forero wrote this week about the legions of tiny community radio stations that are sympathetic to Chavez and that will this year be rewarded for their efforts with 2.6 million dollars in government money. Forero joins us on the line now from Caracas. Juan, welcome to On the Media.

JUAN FORERO: Thank you. Nice to be here.

BOB GARFIELD: How much reach does the community radio have?

JUAN FORERO: It's unclear. It's nothing near the reach of the private television stations. These are not very powerful transmitters that they have, but apparently so many of 'em are popping up that they're starting to cover wide areas. If there is a referendum, I think that the stations will play an even bigger role some months down the road, and by that time more of these community stations will be up and running, and my guess is that they'll be more and more political as time goes on.

BOB GARFIELD: Are they themselves unified in support of Chavez, or is it truly independent radio?

JUAN FORERO:I wouldn't say that they're all truly unified in support of Chavez. I think that many if not most of them -- perhaps, maybe more importantly -- are in opposition to the opposition.

BOB GARFIELD: For your story you visited a few of the low power stations. Who's running them? What kind of people did you meet there?

JUAN FORERO:You meet many different kinds of people. Some of them are not political people at all -they're just teenagers, housewives, people like that, who have been given an avenue to express themselves. There's kids who are just playing CDs. Others have come up with a variety of different programs where they might speak about very mundane things like how to make a budget; how to shop for certain things without spending too much money. And then you do find a number of political people - people who have ties to the Chavez political party or people who are just active in various Chavez organizations.

BOB GARFIELD:My recollection of some of these neighborhoods is one of just grinding poverty; of dwellings that are little more than just shacks with corrugated tin roofs. I'm having trouble squaring my recollections with the idea of running a radio station within. Where does the money come from?

JUAN FORERO: Well, some of the money does come from the government. These are very simple, even primitive transmitters that are set up in people's homes or in the lobby of a housing complex. So it doesn't take a lot of money to get one of these things started up, and in fact, probably one of the biggest obstacles was just getting a license. In the past, these places were shut down by the government, but under the Chavez government, they want these places to really flourish, and one of the things that they've done is they have enacted a law that facilitates licenses to these places quite easily. And now, Chavez has announced that there will be new funding this year for a number of these radio stations.

BOB GARFIELD:Let's talk for a moment about the unsuccessful coup in April 2002 when Chavez was spirited out of his palace in the middle of the night, only to return in triumph, I guess, a few days later. One of the first things the coup leaders did when they set their plan into action was to take control of the state-run television station. How did the Chavistas get the message about what was going on and to mount the pro-Chavez demonstrations that drew so many thousands of people into the streets?

JUAN FORERO: The community radio stations had a big role. While the private media blacked out what was going on after the coup, they were broadcasting you know, soap operas and stuff like that, the neighborhood radio stations were the ones that were reporting what was happening, so many people in the barrios knew that Chavez had been spirited away, and they also knew that there was an effort to re-install him, and of course that led thousands of people to come in from the hills and take part in a very important uprising that in turn led to Chavez being re-instated.

BOB GARFIELD:One of the criticisms from the commercial and political establishment in Venezuela to Chavez is that he's growing increasingly authoritarian, and yet unlike other authoritarian regimes, this one doesn't seem to be trying to pour water on inflammatory media coverage, they seem to be fighting fire with fire.

JUAN FORERO: One of the reasons why the government hates the private media, particularly the television stations, is because they're not really just supportive of the opposition here; they are part of the opposition. They're a radical element within the opposition. I mean they go to the meetings, they have decision-making powers and so forth, and during the coup, they had a big role in basically his ouster. Chavez certainly has in the past threatened that he would shut down stations and jail media executives, but-- that's rhetoric. I think that Chavez may simply be trying to ignore the opposition. He's got a lot of other people who support him here, and he's decided to just try to focus on winning hearts and minds in that sector of the population.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Well, Juan, thanks very much.

JUAN FORERO: Thank you.

BOB GARFIELD: Juan Forero covers Venezuela for the New York Times.