How Venezuela’s government uses private internet providers to restrict access to the news
After seven years of painstakingly building up its audience, Crónica Uno, one of the only high-quality news websites that caters to poor and working-class Venezuelans, was recording up to 15,000 unique page views per day. But after private internet service providers (ISPs) teamed up with Venezuela’s authoritarian government in February to block Crónica Uno and…
Venezuelan authorities seize headquarters of El Nacional as damages in defamation suit
Miami, May 17, 2021 Top of Form— Venezuelan authorities should ensure that civil defamation suits cannot be abused to censor news outlets, and should return El Nacional’s headquarters to its owners immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. At about 7 p.m. on May 14, National Guard agents executing an order issued by a…
Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal orders El Nacional daily to pay $13 million in defamation case
Bogotá, April 20, 2021 – The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a decision by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal ordering the independent daily newspaper El Nacional to pay the equivalent of more than $13 million in damages in a civil defamation lawsuit. On April 16, the Civil Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal ordered El…
Lawsuits and economic crisis drive Venezuela’s journalists into exile
When Ewald Scharfenberg, the founding editor of the Venezuelan investigative news website Armando.Info, holds editorial meetings, he pulls out his mobile phone. That’s because most of his reporters are in Venezuela while Scharfenberg lives and works in neighboring Colombia.
Venezuela’s biggest daily, El Nacional, latest casualty of newsprint restrictions
New York, December 17, 2018–Venezuela’s biggest independent daily, El Nacional, printed its last edition on December 14, its editor and owner Miguel Henrique Otero announced. In an interview published in the paper, Otero, who manages the paper from self-imposed exile in Madrid, said that El Nacional would be available online only because of restrictions that…
Venezuelan court fines news website $500,000 for ‘moral damage’ to politician
Bogotá, Colombia, June 2, 2017–A Venezuelan court’s ruling ordering a news website to pay the equivalent of nearly half a million U.S. dollars in damages for republishing an article about a politician threatens press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
More than 100 journalists face threats or injury covering Venezuela protests
More than 100 journalists and media workers have been threatened, harassed, detained, injured, or otherwise obstructed from doing their work in Venezuela since mass protests erupted against the government of President Nicolás Maduro there at the beginning of April 2017, according to media reports, the affected journalists, and Venezuelan press freedom groups.
Newspaper offices shot at and vandalized in Venezuela
New York, August 31, 2016–Authorities should investigate incidents of vandalism of Venezuelan newspaper offices and do everything in their power to ensure that journalists can work without fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Last critic standing: How El Nacional defies challenges to keep publishing
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 economic crisis, half of Spadaro’s reporters…