Caracas Chronicles

Consider donating to the Vaca Mediática.

A journalist sat for a chat with the son of a dictator on the radio. The interview was the talk of the town for all of the wrong reasons—as it usually is with anything that gets to be talk of the town. It was affable, which is not necessarily a sin, but it was soft and pulled all the punches. There are, of course, several levels of what a pulled punch can be in Venezuela today. Quite understandably, the journalist didn’t ask about the point of holding an election after his dad stole the presidency. Or human rights violations. Or rampant corruption. Or broken families due to mass migration. It was as complacent as an influencer interviewing a Kardashian. The result was a distorted picture of Venezuelan reality.The journalist was crushed on the public opinion arena of X.

But… could this have gone differently? Unlikely.

Since the day that Hugo Chávez declared war on the media, pushing his communicational hegemony agenda, Venezuelan journalists have been doing their work with targets on their backs.

Chavismo’s push against the media has been violent and relentless. It’s all been documented and reported on, but time goes by and people forget. They extinguished the traditional media landscape. Newspapers and TV and Radio Stations were bought or outright closed and taken over by the government. Whatever remained has been subject to so much government pressure that they ended up becoming stale. News and opinion segments turned into variety shows.

But, alas, the resistance exists. Post 2014, longtime journalists banded together with up and coming talent to flood the intertubes with new or revamped media platforms. With little resources they have been doing some award winning reporting, challenging an autocracy, and auditing the unauditable. All of this, while being hunted down by the government.

The situation today is as dire as it can get. Most of these platforms are underfunded, on the verge of closing down, their editors have been chased out of the country, and hundreds of journalists subject to threats and political violence. That’s why 15 independent media outlets created the Vaca Mediática.

These 15 outlets:

@SoyArepita, @CaracasChron, @EfectoCocuyo, @ElPitazoTV, @ipysvenezuela, @lavidadenos, @Medianalisis, @MonitorVictimas, @vesinfiltro, @ProBoxVE, @ReporteYa, @RunRunesWeb, @infopublicave, @DiarioTalCual

La vaca is an initiative to raise funds and awareness on behalf of the work of these outlets. Today, May 17th we will be holding a three-hour livestream to raise funds for these folks (us included). We don’t expect this to be a game changer, but we do want to get this conversation going. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to fix the media model.

Venezuelan journalism is world class, but fragile.

Oh, in case you were wondering.

Vaca: Spanish for cow. For some reason, in Venezuelan Spanish it also refers to fund raising usually organized around a party—so all the patrons can pitch in. A crowdfunded party. So these 15 independent media outlets organized the #VacaMediática, not for aguardiente but for the future of Venezuelan journalism. Please consider donating here.

You can watch the livestream here: