Venezuela's presidential election will take place next Sunday, Oct. 7. In this period of the campaign, the media landscape in the country is polarized between supporters of President Hugo Chávez and opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. An analysis from BBC revealed that while the Venezuelan government has built a media empire of five public broadcasters, the state-run channels have only a slim 5.4 percent of the audience share, according to an investigation by AGB Panamericana.
The United States and Cuba are at opposite extremes of Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2012 report. According to the New York-based organization, the United States was ranked the second most “free” country in the world for online expression, while Cuba was listed as the second to worst.
Including alternative voices, differentiating between government and campaign acts, and in-depth reports on the trajectory of the candidates were some of the recommendations compiled by a group of Venezuelan journalists.
On Sept. 18, Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) addressed the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights about the current situation in Venezuela in the last weeks before the Oct. 7 presidential elections.
Conflicting versions of a violent confrontation between supporters of President Hugo Chávez and opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles demonstrate the polarization of the press in Venezuela less than a month from the elections.
A photographer was attacked at a demonstration in Venezuela as a confrontation broke out between pro-government and opposition supporters on Wednesday, Sept. 12, reported the website Notícias 24.
President Hugo Chávez's administration informed the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday, Sept. 11, that Venezuela will begin the formal process of leaving the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the IACHR Court, according to the website El Mundo.
On Sunday, Sept. 9, a journalist for the National Network of Venezuelan Public Media (SNMP in Spanish) was attacked by supporters of Henrique Capriles, President Hugo Chávez's opponent in the up-coming October presidential elections, reported the Venezuelan News Agency.
On Tuesday, Sept. 4, officials from the Venezuelan broadcaster Globovisión asked the Attorney General to end "unfounded accusations" by government officials after one of the channel's employees was supposedly involved in a shootout.
On Tuesday, Aug. 28, a news team from the newspaper El Nacional was detained by Venezuelan National Guard officials while trying to report on a large fire in the oil refinery of Amuay, in the state of Falcón, reported El Nacional.
A special report about Venezuela on Wednesday, Aug. 29, by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called attention to President Hugo Chávez's harassment of the private press during the last 13 years, reported the newspaper La Nación. The report, titled "Venezuela's private media wither under Chávez assault," is the fourth CPJ has published about Venezuela ever since Chávez was elected president for the first time, in 1999. According to CPJ, Chávez has used threats and restrictive measures -- such as the persecution of journalists that criticize the government, and other ways of criminalizing the press -- to und
In a press release on Friday, Aug. 24, the National Journalists Union (CNP in Spanish) criticized the attacks against a Venezuelan news team from the Globovisión TV channel, while the journalists were covering a prison conflict in southern Caracas, the capital of the country.