Caracas Chronicles

As anywhere else in the world, Venezuela’s large traditional media outlets were owned by four or five wealthy family groups that surfed a century in which ¨the media¨ was good business. As Hugo Chavez’s autocratic tumbao became more evident and advertising revenue became scarce, it didn’t seem as if the media business was going to be very interesting in the new millennium. Also, making a profit out of subscriptions got harder. People forgot that they used to pay for the news periodically. 

Large business groups tend to have many different business streams, but in the end the incentives align into a single matter: profitability. Which is great! We love profitability. Who doesn’t? But sometimes profitability can get in the way of service. Service in the terms in which journalism is service in Venezuela. A necessity that requires a committed level of independence to seek and tell the truth. Pretty much a public utility service.

In many countries, governments are a key source of funding for media organizations, be it via media grants and awards or via advertisement fees and subscriptions. Hindering your ability to do business with the government, which is usually the most desired customer (in any industry), or to do business at all in the country is surely a deterrent when the main driver is profit.

Censorship, by definition, is boring.

Digital journalism was a blessing and a curse, a curse for the business model and a blessing for accessibility. In the 2010s, Venezuela certainly wasn’t the last in the online media shift. Not for the best reasons, of course. Our journalism was forced to migrate to online formats early on.

Taking apart the media ecosystem

The dismantling of traditional media outlets in Venezuela was brutal and creative. From the moment that Hugo Chávez started feeling threatened by the media the tone changed and he launched a censorship campaign directed by the communications agency CONATEL—back when current top chavista enforcer Diosdado Cabello was running it. But censorship wasn’t enough. Eventually, the urge to tell what was happening to the country leaked through the seams and every adverse piece of news became a building block toward the construction of chavismo’s “communicational hegemony.” The government needed to ensure control of the media.

An example had to be made. In 2007, the government refused to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest private TV network. It became the “or else” that the government used to bend wills. “Fall in line or else” worked for some, like TV networks Venevision and Televen. Which survived, but ended up creating stale and boring content. Censorship, by definition, is boring.

For others, it was via offers you couldn’t refuse (some of them too good to refuse). At the same time that Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and shifted its focus to online subscriptions, media group Cadena Capriles was being sold at a similar price to government connected business folk. It’s a good benchmark, both were sold in 2013, around the same time that news TV network Globovisión and newspaper El Universal passed to the hands of men fronting for government interests who drove these organizations to the ground.

Four hundred media outlets, including print media, radio, TV channels, and digital platforms, have been shut down by the government in the last 20 years, according to Espacio Publico.

How much gunpoint was required for these transactions is not clear, but they did make a pretty penny. In an economy like Venezuela’s, when you control the foreign exchange system, you have unlimited resources at the expense of the nation. The story of how some of these outlets were paid for would make for great investigation pieces themselves. 

But not all of these remaining organizations got so lucky. El Nacional, one of Venezuela’s oldest newspapers, was choked out of existence with paper supply cuts and constant harassment by the government. Eventually, via an insane court decision, the paper’s newsroom and printing press ended in the hands of Diosdado Cabello and later turned into a government media manipulation farm.

Hundreds of radio stations were closed or taken over by the government and different regional media outlets suffered a similar death. To put it in perspective: Four hundred media outlets, including print media, radio, TV channels, and digital platforms, have been shut down by the government in the last 20 years, according to Espacio Publico, an NGO that promotes and defends freedom of expression in the country.

A barren land, a media desert. Except…

The media apocalypse erased an industry that had been around for decades and it left hundreds of journalists without jobs or facing the sad option to join chavismo’s propaganda apparatus for hunger wages. But there was another way, as there usually is. As fast as the traditional outlets were dying, over a dozen independent media outlets built by journalists started sprouting all over. The resistance to Chávez’s communicational hegemony.

All these organizations have kept Venezuelan journalism alive for over a decade. A decade in which they’ve had to fight tooth and nail to stay alive. Not only because of Nicolás Maduro’s all out war against them, but also fighting an ailing business model and an industry that has been defunded from every angle you can imagine. It’s not like people are very much inclined to pay for the news today, and advertising has moved on to social media influencers—and perhaps international funding for media too. 

Because of their size, the limited resources, and the constant harassment by Maduro & Co., most of these small outlets hold alliances with each other for different projects, that range from fact checking to outright investigations that challenge Maduro’s autocracy. For instance, for the July 28th presidential elections (2024) we joined Venezuela Vota and La Hora De Venezuela for the coverage and created Operación Retuit, an AI project to protect the identities of journos on the ground powered by more than a dozen outlets and 235 individuals—we were just awarded the Premio Rey de España for journalism for Operación Retuit.

From one of these alliances is also where the Vaca Mediática came from (What is a Vaca Mediática?). 15 independent media outlets banded together to raise awareness and funds for Venezuelan journalism. These fifteen organizations are made up of 138 deeply committed individuals that keep the engine going. 138 people that give much more than what they take.

Venezuela’s most important newsroom runs from kitchen tables and living rooms scattered across the world.

On a more personal note, what I’ve seen during the past year is a group of journalists that have a deep commitment to the work. A deep understanding of what journalism is and a drive that goes beyond what a 9 to 5 requires. This is something else. It’s samurai levels of service. No hesitation. People who commit to stories selflessly and relentlessly. People who enjoy the work: the snooping, the fact checks, the interviews, the writing, dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s, and everything in between. I’ve seen camaraderie and compassion.

A synchronicity only attainable after years of working together, of knowing each other. Which in fact, in many cases they have and they do. These different outlets were founded by colleagues that crossed paths in the hallways of newspapers and magazines, as bosses and reporters and editors and interns. In the classrooms as professors and classmates. At competing radio stations or elbowing each other at press conferences or racing to be the first in print. 

This is actual independent journalism, because we’re not just talking about outlets that are unaffiliated with the government, political agendas or parties, but also disconnected with business interests that may conflict with this compulsion to serve. 

The atomization of Venezuela’s media industry can be seen in different ways. You can say that Venezuela’s journalism is dying. The proverbial final kick of those who are drowning. That these little outlets are the remnants of what once was a fine industry. Or you can see it as it can be: a very decent, mid sized independent media coalition with hundreds of individuals committed to the truth. We have people that can tell the story of what is happening in the country. Venezuela’s most important newsroom runs from kitchen tables and living rooms scattered across the world.

You can still donate to the Vaca Mediática by clicking here. You’d be supporting different forms of independent journalism, just check out the range:

• Arepita: A media outlet specialized in newsletters that connects creatively with Venezuela.
• Caracas Chronicles: News, opinion, and analysis blog about Venezuela in English. Founded in 2002.
• Cazadores de Fake News: Digital research organization focused on disinformation.
• Efecto Cocuyo: A media outlet that informs, educates, and connects through journalism that enlightens.
• El Pitazo: News and investigative media outlet, founded in 2014.
• IPYS: Organization that promotes and defends freedom of expression.
• La Vida de Nos: Media outlet specialized in narrative journalism, founded in 2017.
• Medianálisis: Organization that promotes independent journalism in Venezuela.
• Monitor de Víctimas: Violence Observatory through investigations and data journalism.
• Noticias sin filtro: Anti-censorship newsreader app that’s easy to use without a VPN.
• Probox: Organization dedicated to identifying, analyzing, and countering online information operations.
• ReporteYA: Pioneering network in citizen journalism and digital literacy.
• Runrunes: Investigative and in-depth journalism with a focus on human rights.
• Servicio de información pública: A media outlet that delivers audio reports via WhatsApp and Telegram.
• TalCual: A media outlet with 25 years of delivering news, analysis, and opinion. Founded by legendary politician Teodoro Petkoff.

Today, journalism is not profitable. But we’re constantly working on ways to make it sustainable. Join the fray. 

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