Almost 50 years after the approval of the Law on the Exercise of Journalism in Venezuela, and 28 years after its last reform, the Chavista National Assembly began a review in order to modify the law, an announcement that has set off alarms in the union.
For Eduardo Orozcoformer president of the National Association of Journalists (CNP), the law must be changed to adjust to the new times but not to be tailored to authoritarianism.
“Obviously, the Law on the Exercise of Journalism needs to be adapted to technological advances and to new professional roles and responsibilities in a democratic society. For example, the right to information and the right to professional secrecy must be respected to guarantee investigative journalism and denunciation », he told Cocuyo effect.
On July 13, the second vice president of the People’s Power and Communication Commission of the National Assembly elected in 2020, Carol Chavezassured that the discussion is just beginning, with the installation of working groups, but affirmed that the law must include the exercise of journalism «from all areas“, beyond those who “graduated from university”.
More prepared journalists
For Orozco, the law must guarantee the protection of the professional exercise of journalismbecause current times require more prepared journalists to analyze and disseminate truthful and reliable information in the face of the great flow of messages amplified by social networks.
«The legal protection of professional journalism, university studies in Social Communication and the right to organize ourselves in a College must be guaranteed in the Law. The current one is a conquest of Venezuelan journalists»he added.
experts like Marcelino Bisbal, doctor in Social Sciences, they assure that the modification of the law represents a risk but also an opportunity: by having a totally Chavista National Assembly, the law can become an instrument that does not professionally defend the interests of journalists, but rather the interests of a sector.
However, for Bisbal, the result will depend on the consultation made to the union: if the union’s proposals are heard, it may represent an opportunity.
Consult the guild
Orozco agrees with what Bisbal stated and assures that the union should be consulted, which rejects that it be reformed only to satisfy political interests.
«An Assembly that is complicit in the outrages of the regime, that censors the voice of citizens, that persecutes those who think differently, that runs over and imprisons journalists, does not have moral or political authority to make a law to the extent of authoritarianism, and less without consulting the journalistic union, “said the former president of the CNP.
Orozco, a professor at the main Social Communication schools in the country for many years, also stressed that the access to new means of expressionand must guarantee without state censorshipsince at present the intervention and blockades against portals and networks persist for «silence the claims» about the absence of basic services and citizen rights.
From the National Association of Journalists they call on their thousands of members to demand concrete actions from their leaders so that the spirit of the law is not altered.