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When Omar Lugo—a Venezuelan freelance correspondent for Clarín, Agence France-Presse, and others—heads out into the streets of Caracas, he leaves his work phone at home. “Police can stop you and look into your phone,” he said. “If you have contacts or sensitive information that you’re not supposed to have, you could be thrown in jail.” He never opens a conversation by identifying himself as a journalist, and speaks to sources only on background.
This is less a function of recent American interference than business as usual. Under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, through Nicolás Maduro’s tenure to today, official narratives have echoed across state-controlled TV, radio, and print media; authorities have declined visas for foreign journalists to enter the country; independent news outlets are banned and accessible only via VPN. In the week following the US incursion, police, military forces, and colectivos—pro-government paramilitaries—roamed the streets, cracking down on protesters, members of the opposition, and independent journalists. On January 5, when Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president, fourteen media workers, many of them working for international outlets, were detained. (Thirteen of them were soon released; one was deported the same day.) This week, according to the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP), an organization that represents, defends, and promotes the rights of journalists in Venezuela, nineteen journalists who had previously been detained by Maduro were let go from prison. (It is unclear whether the charges against them will be dropped.) Although this “is great news for these journalists’ families, for the press, for the community,” said Artur Romeu, the director of Reporters Without Borders’ Latin America office, Venezuelan journalists remain “repressed” and “restricted.”
The heightened level of pressure on reporters arose in the aftermath of the 2024 elections, when Maduro claimed victory despite evidence suggesting that he had lost, and Venezuelans took to the streets in protest. “The government chased after journalists who covered the clashes,” Lugo remembered. Venezuela currently ranks 160 out of the 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index.
Many journalists fled the country and now work in exile, including the editorial teams of most independent news sites. Those newsrooms still rely on the work of reporters remaining in Venezuela. “We put in a lot of safety measures,” a Venezuelan social media video producer, who asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said. “We don’t have bylines. We always have to ask ourselves: Who’s going to see this? Will the Chavistas get the video?”
“We try to combine the capabilities of people in exile and those on the ground in Venezuela,” Luz Mely Reyes, the cofounder of Efecto Cocuyo, an independent news site, said. As soon as the US military entered Caracas, journalists from Efecto Cocuyo, as well as El Pitazo, Runrunes, Caracas Chronicles, and Cazadores de Fake News, started a broadcast on YouTube that lasted more than ten hours, with exiled journalists analyzing and sharing news gathered by their colleagues on the ground.
Many of those journalists have been collaborating for even longer. In 2016, the outlets El Pitazo, Runrunes, and Talcua founded an investigative journalistic network, Alianza Rebelde Investiga, which allowed them to share coverage. Three years later, they started collaborating editorially. “The majority of us know each other because we worked together,” César Batiz, the editor and cofounder of El Pitazo, said, “or because we’ve had a beer together on more than one occasion or because we’ve gone dancing.” Joining forces, and resources, has become a strategic advantage for Venezuelan reporters. “It’s harder for authoritarian regimes to attack multiple journalists as opposed to one,” Ronna Rísquez, an investigative journalist based outside Venezuela who coordinates the Alianza Rebelde Investiga, said.
In spite of the obstacles, many reporters feel a responsibility to stay in the country. “Our duty as journalists is to tell things and defend human rights,” Ana María Rodríguez Brazón, a Caracas correspondent for El Tiempo, the Colombian news outlet, said. “That’s why we are here.” Rísquez doesn’t like thinking of herself as a journalist “in exile.” It implies, she said, that she was banished—that she is a “victim,” that she left permanently. “And I want to go back.”
Lugo, for his part, said that there are few journalism jobs available outside the country anyway. “Hard times,” he said. He plans to stay.
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