Three journalists and a photographer were detained on Wednesday, Aug. 15, after covering an oil spill in the city of Freites, in the state of Anzoátegui, in Venezuela, reported the site La Patilla.
According to a report published by the Coalition ProAccess movement, the right to access public information in Venezuela is being restricted by the government, reported the organization Espacio Público, on Monday Aug. 13.
The Venezuelan NGO Espacio Público launched on Tuesday, Aug. 14, a campaign for the end of President Hugo Chavez's forced TV and radio broadcasts, reported El Universal.
Venezuelan journalists from private news outlets were not allowed to cover a presidential event on Monday, Aug. 6, reported El Universal.
Officials of the Venezuelan National Guard seized the camera and deleted the work of a photographer who was covering violence in a park in the city of Barinas, in southeastern Venezuela, reported the National Union of Journalists on Friday, August 3.
On Thursday, August 2, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) said that it would investigate two TV stations and two newspapers in the country for allegedly violating the rules of the presidential elections, which will take place in October 2012, reported the newspaper El Nacional.
The Journalism School of Columbia University in New York gave out the María Moors Cabot awards dedicated to outstanding journalists covering the western hemisphere. The 74th edition of the prizes were awarded to Teodoro Petkoff, newspaper publisher of Tal Cual in Venezuela; David Luhnow, head of the Latin American office of the The Wall Street Journal; as well as Juan Forero, correspondent for the Washington Post and of the South American NPR; and publisher and columnist Miguel Ángel Bastenier, of the newspaper El País and professor of the New Ibero-American Journalism Foundation in Colombia.
Venezuelan journalist from the TV station Venezoelana de Televisión reported being attacked by supporters of presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, reported the National Union of Venezuelan Journalists.
Between 1999, when Hugo Chávez first became President of Venezuela, and June 2012, the country's television and radio stations have been forced to broadcast 2,334 president speeches, amounting to a total of 97,561 minutes of broadcasting.
The freedom of expression situation in Venezuela has deteriorated since 2008, due to President Hugo Chávez's abundant power abuses, according to a report by the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
A team of reporters from the Venezuelan TV channel Televen were attacked on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 10, as shots were fired from the roof of the National Prison of Maracaibo, better known as the Sabaneta prison, in the state of Zulia.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called the Venezuelan Supreme Court's decision to seize the assets of the TV station Globivisión for not paying a fee in 2011 a "blatant attack on press freedom."