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Internet a Lifeline for Venezuela's Embattled Independent Media

AFP

   CARACAS - Starved of advertising revenue and battling a stranglehold on
   the newspaper industry by the government, Venezuela's independent media
   have been decimated by the country's years-long crisis -- with many
   migrating online to survive.

   "It was a course we couldn't get away from," Jorge Makriniotis, manager
   at the 75-year-old El Nacional, told AFP.

   The newspaper ran its last physical edition -- which had already
   dropped from 72 to just 16 pages -- on December 13 last year.

   Like many other former print media, it is only available on the
   internet now.

   In 2013, Venezuela's socialist government created a state-run company
   to control the import and distribution of paper.

   Carlos Correa, director of the Espacio Publico non-governmental
   organization, said the move created "discriminatory dynamics" that saw
   pro-regime media favored -- while others were starved of printing
   paper, and advertising revenue.

   Since then, 58 daily newspapers have ceased circulation, Correa says.

   "There's never been an official response" to the claims from
   independent media, said Gisela Carmona, the director of El Impulso --
   one of the papers that has migrated online, requiring an investment of
   more than a million dollars.

   After 100 years in print, the newspaper disappeared from the streets in
   February 2018, having received no paper for 12 months.

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