A dangerous time to be a journalist in Venezuela.
Día del Periodista 2017: Journalism amid Fear
By Gustavo Hernández A. - June 27, 2017
"Day after day, media workers are facing a shocking proliferation of aggressions as we try to cover the most consequential protests in living memory. Meanwhile radio and TV stations are routinely shut down for refusing the path of self-censorship. So pardon us if Día del Periodista feels a little more momentous than usual this year. These are just not normal times.
Journalism is becoming an extreme sport here. Foreign journos face all kinds of obstacles including getting banned from the country as well as getting their broadcast signals taken off the air. It’s bad enough that simply being on the receiving end of public insults and ridicule barely seems worth mentioning anymore: it’s the new normal...
...Far from following in the Libertador’s footsteps, today’s government has sought to quash down on freedom of the press through intimidation, persecution, and, more and more, straight-up physical assaults.
Take Elyangelica González, Caracas correspondent for the U.S. Spanish-language TV network Univisión and Colombian radio network Caracol Radio.
On March 31st, she was savagely attacked by several members of the National Guard near the building of the Supreme Court (TSJ) where she was supposed to cover an official press conference. Part of the incident was caught on tape, which soon went viral."
-snip-
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/27/dia-del-periodista-2017-journalism-amid-fear/
