Protests, paper and Twitter: The “black hole” of Venezuelan media
By Robert Shaw, IMS Regional Advisor, Latin America
Threats, attacks and a lack of printing paper leave Venezuela’s media struggling to keep up as the country’s protests intensify
“On 24 February, amid violent street protests the body of a protester was found outside a ransacked shop in the city of Maracay, 80 kms Southwest of Caracas,” Javier Moreno, political editor of the national daily, El Universal, told IMS. “And none of the prime-time TV stations carried the news.”
In fact, official statements regarding deaths have varied wildly since this two-week period of anti-government protests broke out. On 24 February, the Attorney General Luisa Ortega said 13 people had died in protest-related violence. Then only four days later, President Nicolás Maduro spoke at a pro-government rally staged by farmers outside the presidential palace, saying there were “more than 50 dead as a result of road blocks and barricades.”
“This is the black hole that media coverage in our country has been pushed into,” said Moreno. “People don’t even know what and who to believe.”
Protesters and security forces attack journalists
Government threats of fines or closure have either ended up with direct censorship or self-censorship of the remaining independent media outlets nationwide.
On 11 February, the head of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) warned journalists that any coverage of violent events was banned, and that anyone contravening the prohibition would be punished.
In the month of February alone, CNN’s correspondents had their visas revoked, a Colombia-based cable TV station (NTN24) was taken off the air and journalists on the street were beaten and detained, their equipment and material confiscated.
According to local journalists groups, since mid-February, protestors from both sides and security forces have attacked journalists covering the demonstrations in a range of cities across the country.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York detailed how “at least one journalist was injured by gunfire on February 12. State media reported that Mayra Cienfuegos, an employee of the state television network VTV, was shot – allegedly by opposition protesters – while covering protests around the network’s headquarters in Caracas.”
“President Maduro has lost control of the major economic and security battles facing Venezuela,” said Moreno. “And now with 90% of our food being imported and inflation rates soaring over 55%, street protests will only become more widespread as the year rolls on.”
The media has indeed been pushed directly into the line of fire since early February, when student protests exploded in the western states of Táchira and Merida demanding increased security.
It soon spread to the capital and other parts of the country, as more and more Venezuelans took to the streets to protest not only increased homicides and violence but also record inflation and shortages of staple items.
Paper shortages lead to mass media shutdown
“As these problems spiral out of control, the government is aware that it has to do everything it can to silence dissent,” said Moreno. “Cutting off the source certainly seems to be one of the main strategies to get this done”.
Moreno explained that both El Universal and El Nacional, two of Venezuela’s largest circulation dailies, have only enough paper reserves to last until June. The veteran reporter told IMS that “up to 12 regional newspapers have shut down and close to 40, or half of the nation’s regional press, are on the brink of closure.”
El Sol de Maturin, Antorcha, Caribe, La Hora and Version stopped operating in August 2013, and El Guayanes and El Expreso closed earlier this month.
Significant parts of Latin America’s newspapers, like El Universal and El Nacional in Caracas, import paper from Canada. But such purchases require dollars and the Venezuelan government has increasingly restricted access to dollars forcing newspapers to rely exclusively on their online presence using Facebook and Twitter to reach the public.
Dangers of social media and future for Venezuelan journalism
“Beyond this, the problem is that in rural parts of Venezuela only 20% of the population have access to the Internet,” said Moreno. “Local TV channels are providing almost no live coverage of the unrest, so many people are turning to social media, where it’s difficult to verify the information and images being circulated.”
According to Ewald Scharfenberg, the Caracas correspondent for Spain’s El País newspaper, propaganda, poor training, and staff layoffs have left the media in Venezuela at the mercy of social networks.
“This growing dependence on social media is extremely dangerous,” said Scharfenberg. “Twitter is rife with false information, rumours and outright lies, leaving the public blind with almost no access to official or independent sources.”
Scharfenberg, who set up his own investigative journalism outfit in Venezuela in 2011, says the only possible upturn for the media now is a rising new generation of investigative reporters who are pushing the boundaries of traditional media outlets to create new investigative journalism units in their newsrooms.
