Risks, Challenges and Strengths represented by the exercise of journalism in Venezuela

Caracas.- On the day of freedom of the press and within the framework of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Communication Research Center of the Andrés Bello Catholic University (CIC-UCAB) in September, the Medianalisis Civil Association joined the organization of the “Communications Month”, an open space to discuss the risks, challenges and strengths that journalism represents today in Venezuela.

The first meeting entitled Freedom of the Press in Venezuela? It was led by journalist and professor León Hernández, who shared with a panel made up of journalist Luisa Torrealba, researcher and professor of communication rights, journalism, ethics and communication policies at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), and Andrés Cañizález, journalist, researcher and founding director of Medianalysis, who focused their interventions on the communicational hegemony that currently surrounds the country’s information ecosystem. .

“There is a worsening of communications restrictions that has meant that citizens have fewer opportunities and options to access information,” commented Professor Torrealba at the beginning of her speech, and added as data to confirm her assertion, that for the In the year 2000, the Communication Research Institute (of the UCV) documented that there were approximately 142 print media in the country, while currently, in 2022, less than 20 active print media are registered.

In his opinion, these dramatic numbers are an indicator of how the range of options that must exist in a democracy has been limited, so that citizens can choose which way to get information.

In this sense, the journalist Andrés Cañizález added that journalists and the media lived through a stage of many physical and verbal attacks that have been changing over time, in the same way he expressed his concern regarding the restrictions that they live in addition to the professionals of communication, the common citizen, to whom the so-called Law of Hate has been applied for exposing their point of view on the different social platforms.

He recalled that in the midst of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 virus, doctors, nurses and journalists were persecuted so that they would not report on the reality that was being experienced at that time.

For her part, Luisa Torrealba noted that, in the Venezuelan case related to the pandemic, there was persecution once morest journalists and media outlets that reported autonomously and independently on the number of cases and deaths, in addition to persecution of health workers who published the lack of supplies and biosafety equipment.

“For me it is the most worrying moment, where ordinary Venezuelans feel afraid and vulnerable to give an opinion, because simply saying something on a social network can lead to prison,” revealed Cañizález.

Communicational hegemony

Andrés Cañizález indicated that today in Venezuela we are experiencing the result of a political decision to remain in power and this result can be read in how the printed media practically no longer exist, he also lamented the cases that have been registered in the radio system, “for at least once a month there is a closure of a radio station at the regional level”.

Regarding the control of national television in the country, he revealed that the Government has power over the public channels that stopped reporting, which benefits the regime by making it a unique voice in the media space.

Of the 22 television stations that broadcast throughout the national territory, not all broadcast in open signal, Torrealba assured in this sense that 9 television stations correspond to the private sector and 13 to the public system, and stated that hegemony is not only measured in numbers but in the real and effective broadcasting capacity and reach of the media.

sophistication in restraint

The journalist and researcher Luisa Torrealba agreed with what was stated by her colleague Andrés Cañizález, as she assured that for 20 years the Government has sophisticated its way of restricting the press and journalists, she commented that previously, from the National Telecommunication Commission, He made an appeal to the media to try to persuade them not to release information that might seem uncomfortable, however, at this time the calls are more direct, personal and threatening.

“Now the citizen who wants to express himself is threatened and attacked, but also the information source, a person who provides information to the media can also be persecuted, harassed and threatened,” said Torrealba, who also considers that now violating the right to health, personal integrity and life.