As of Oct. 1, El Impulso, one of the oldest newspapers in Venezuela, will publish a shorter version of its edition due to a lack of printing supplies. In an editorial published by El Impulso on Sep. 29, the newspaper's editorial board states that it has been waiting 11 months for government authorization that allows it to import the necessary materials.
For several weeks, El Impulso, a newspaper located in the Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto, in the state of Lara, has been printing without color in an effort to prevent shutting down its publication completely.
The newspaper also informed that it has been buying available printing supplies at high prices from inside Venezuela, describing it as an "ordeal" to gather the supplies necessary to continue circulation. It has continued to wait for an official response from Cadivi (Government Commission for the Administration of Foreign Exchange) and the ministry of Industry to obtain the authorization and necessary solvency in foreign currency for the importation of paper, ink, printing plates, etc.
According to news site Zocalo, those most affected are the regional media, who have already reached the limit of their reserves.
Claudio Paolillo, president of the Inter American Press Association's Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information, said that the situation is a “convenient double standard of the government of Nicolás Maduro, a type of programmed scarity. (…) It is a handy and uncreative form of silencing the critical, independent voices in this country."
"If the (Venezuelan) government left the hospitals without gas, the supermarkets without flour and toilet paper and the pharmacies without urgent medicine, what can be expected of indispensable supplies to edit periodicals, magazines and books,” said the aforementioned editorial in El Impulso.
Other newspapers in the interior of the nation have stopped publishing due to a lack of materials: El Sol of Maturín (state of Monagas), Antorcha (state de Anzoátegui), El Caribazo, La Hora, El Caribe (all three in the state of Nueva Esparta) y Los Llanos y El Espacio (both in the state of Barinas), according to a IAPA report.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
