Venezuela documents by Year:
From power cuts to powerful threats, Venezuela's indigenous journalists face a series of challenges in their reporting
September 13, 2017 5:14 PM ET
Three twentysomethings huddle over a desk in a small room in Tucupita, a low-slung city of about 90,000 people that spills across the Orinoco river delta region in northeastern Venezuela. Far from the tear gas and street conflicts roiling cities including Caracas and Valencia, these journalists are focused on...
After Venezuelan elections, Globovisión shows more defiant stance
March 23, 2016 6:27 PM ET
When Venezuela's opposition broke the ruling party's 17-year stranglehold on power by winning control of congress in December, the political earthquake created editorial aftershocks at the 24-hour news station Globovisión....
Last critic standing: How El Nacional defies challenges to keep publishing
February 22, 2016 11:12 AM ET
Patricia Spadaro, news editor at the Caracas daily El Nacional, faces daunting challenges in putting out the newspaper. Her boss, El Nacional's president and editor Miguel Henrique Otero, has been living in exile since May 2015 after a top government official accused him of defamation. Amid the country's deep...
Venezuela's national assembly reopens to the press after five-year ban
January 27, 2016 2:48 PM ET
When security guards opened the doors to Venezuela's colonial-era National Assembly building last Wednesday, I was among the dozens of reporters who swarmed inside. Even though the day's legislative session would not be called to order for another three hours, every seat in the press galley, located on the...
Inter-American Human Rights System, campaigns against defamation laws keep journalists from jail in Americas
December 15, 2015 12:01 AM ET
When a prison guard told Ángel Santiesteban Prats that he would be released from jail on a scorching summer day in July, the Cuban independent writer and blogger decided to ignore him, brushing off the news as a cruel joke. By then, Santiesteban had already spent two years and five...
In Venezuela, online news helps journalists get their voices back
June 1, 2015 11:32 AM ET
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was rumored to be gravely ill four years ago, his socialist government was tightlipped about the diagnosis. Then in June 2011 a source in Havana, Cuba, where Chávez was being treated, told Nelson Bocaranda, a veteran columnist for the Caracas daily El Universal, that...
In Venezuela, Tal Cual under pressure but not defeated
April 9, 2015 5:13 PM ET
Tal Cual, one of the few remaining Venezuelan newspapers critical of the government, is so shorthanded there's often no receptionist on hand to let people in. Visitors must bang on the front door until someone in the newsroom notices. That can take a while because there are hardly any...
News rationed as Venezuela seeks to control newsprint imports
January 8, 2015 4:38 PM ET
Venezuelan newspapers have traditionally handed out hundreds of courtesy copies in their lobbies and at hotels. But Correo del Caroní, an independent daily in the industrial city of Ciudad Guayana, treats every edition as if it were precious and now gives away just 14 copies, including one to the...
Venezuela's El Universal criticized for being tamed by mystery new owners
December 30, 2014 10:01 AM ET
To illustrate how the once-critical Caracas daily El Universal has cozied up to Venezuela's socialist government in the wake of its sale in July, it helps to examine the newspaper's coverage of the current oil price plunge....
Slideshow: Covering protests in Venezuela
April 14, 2014 10:26 AM ET
Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared...