By Diego Cruz
Venezuelan newspaper El Universal declared itself in a state of emergency on Monday May 5 due to a lack of newsprint, saying their current inventory would allow them to publish for two more weeks at the most, according to a statement by the paper. El Universal will need to cut down its print edition to two sections of eight pages each, with the rest of the content published online.
Since August 2012, the country’s currency exchange system started preventing newspapers from importing newsprint without currency provided by the government, an action that now threatens the survival of Venezuelan news media who are not receiving these currencies and has resulted in the closure of more than a dozen newspapers.
According to the Associated Press (AP) more than twenty news outlets have been affected by the newsprint crisis overall, since the Venezuelan National Center for Exterior Commerce has not authorized their attempts to purchase foreign currency. In the case of El Universal, the government also prevented them from receiving a shipment of newsprint that has been stored in the Venezuelan port of La Guaira since January.
The newspaper had already reduced the number of pages it publishes every day to 24 due to lack of newsprint, while newspaper El Nacional was also forced to reduce its print edition by 40 percent.
In April, the Colombian newspaper organization Andiarios sent 52 tons of newsprint to Venezuela to help newspapers El Nacional, El Impulso and El Nuevo País continue printing for the rest of the month.
Miguel Henrique Otero, director of El Nacional, said in an interview with Mexican newspaper El Universal that the only reason his newspaper continued publishing a print edition was thanks to the solidarity and help of news media in Colombia and other Latin American nations.
“The government does not allow us to buy dollars so we can acquire newsprint. It only does this with state-aligned newspapers,” Otero said. “It is evidently a censorship mechanism that they have applied since last May and we continue to do our jobs the only way we can, by getting smaller.”
The newsprint crisis started last August, when national suppliers stopped selling the product and their reserves began to diminish, according to AP. Some regional newspapers have closed down since then, including “El Sol de Maturin,” “Notidiario,” “La Hora,” “Caribe” and “Antorcha.”
In recent months, Venezuela has also faced a shortage in food and basic consumer goods, something corporations have blamed on delays on the government’s part to sell currency necessary for importing raw materials and supplies. Although the Venezuelan government has not commented on the newsprint crisis, President Nicolás Maduro said the overall shortage faced by the country was a result of an “economic war” promoted by certain private companies, according to AP.
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.
