Venezuelan
case
Furtive Press as the Last Defense of News Freedom
Enrique Castejon-Lara
Abstract
The increasingly worldwide press restrictions by
intolerant regimes —including those called “democratic”— are forcing journalist
to use social media as new report trenches, but using prudently semantic
writing strategies to evade political and illegal reprisals. That is the
specific case of reporters in Venezuela.
When a
government rules out constitution and laws, and does not respect citizen rights,
journalistic mass media have the moral obligation of acting against it. That is
the main principle stablished by Press Social Responsibility Theory (Siebert,
Peterson, and Schramm, 1984). But, many times, as in the case of Venezuela,
journalists do not have the possibility to accomplish efficiently that ethic command,
because their lives are on risk and the media’s owners have been menaced by the
regime. Usually, the unconstitutional governments, like that one in Venezuela, not
only manipulate law and justice institutions, but also control printing paper,
ink supplies, and broadcast frequencies. So, the “combat sceneries” for contemporary
newsmen are really “asymmetric”, and deeply difficult.
That is the
reason why Venezuelan reporters are increasingly using social media as
alternative means for reporting true facts. At this moment, in that country, those
online resources are their trenches against censorship and political reprisals.
However, they even so are exposed to government officers’ aggression. In the
last three years, many domestic journalists have been jailed without previous arrest
warrant, and, in some occasions, their passports have been “confiscated” when
traveling out the country. Similar things have been happened to some
international reporters, especially those working for news agencies like
Reuter, AFP, and EFE, and television networks like CNN and NTN24. Some of them
have suffered Venezuelan government aggressions and censorship.
In that
sense, social media are not effective enough for Venezuelan reporters, and, of
course, for Venezuelan people. The arbitrary acts of the government are invaded
those “freedom spaces” where citizens hope find the truth of what is really happening
in their country. A regimen “mercenary army” of false users (bots) of Twitter,
Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and other social media are virtually flooding
them with fake news and psychological messages to undermine people hope to
demoralize them. However, not all is good for the regime. Fortunately for
freedom, opposition and so active people on line are helping journalists to
spread the truth. In that case, the government strategies are not obtaining the
results they want. Maybe, the Venezuelan regimen never expected a persistent
and huge amount of spontaneous citizen reporters acting together to unveil their
traps and propaganda.
That is
today situation of press in Venezuela. Newsmen are trying to disclose true information
from social media trenches, but using alternative writing methods including
semantic strategies to evade regimen reprisals. They, now, are practicing a new
way to report, a kind of “guerrilla” journalism that can be named “furtive
press”.
Sources:
CASTEJON
LARA, Enrique. Interpretative reporting. CreativeSpace (Amazon), 2015.
SIEBERT,
Fred S.; PETERSON, Theodore, and SCHRAMM, Wilbur. Concepts of what the press should be and do. University of
Illinois Press, 1984.
