NAHJ Convention to Discuss Walking the Tightrope: Challenges Faced by the Media in Venezuela

The National Association for Hispanic Journalists will discuss the growing conflict between the news media and the government of Venezuela during its annual convention next week in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Panelists will discuss how government pressure and threats of government shutdown of media, lawsuits and arrests are affecting journalists and media outlets in Venezuela.

During the Newsmaker Luncheon titled “Walking the Tightrope: Challenges Faced by the Media in Venezuela,” panelist Alberto Ravell, director of Globovisión, Caracas will join the discussion analyzing the most recent clashes between Hugo Chavez’s government and the press. The confrontation resulted in a $3 million fine against the television station Globovisión, in addition to threats of shuttering the station and El Nacional newspaper.

Veteran Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo will join the panel to discuss her challenges reporting in Venezuela. Poleo left Venezuela in order to continue her work as a journalist, and she now writes a column for the Venezuelan paper El Nuevo Pais from Miami.

Eduardo Hauser, media expert and current member of the journalism advisory board of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a member of the board of directors of National Public Radio (NPR), will be moderating the panel. Additional panelists will be announced pending confirmation.

The panel will take place on Thursday, June 25 from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. at the Grand Ballroom of the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan. It is part of the 27th Annual NAHJ Convention and Media & Career Expo, which runs from June 24-27. The Convention will focus on intensive, cutting-edge multimedia training. Convention attendees will have access to more than 63 workshops, training sessions and panel discussions to help them compete in a changing media landscape.

For more information about the convention programming, the expo, and registration, go to www.nahj.org. All press inquiries should be addressed to Marina Giovannelli at (858) 610-0237 or at marina@nahj.org.

Founded in 1984, NAHJ’s mission is to increase the percentage of Latinos working in our nation’s newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the Latino community. NAHJ is the nation’s largest professional organization for Latino journalists with more than 2,300 members working in English and Spanish-language print, photo, broadcast and online media.
Media Contact:
Marina Giovannelli
(858) 610-0237″

• When White Writers Do “Latino” Issues – It was chaos this week in the LA Weekly’s virtual mailroom, which received a deluge of reactionary attitude in regard to Christine Pelisek’s cover story “Chaos in the Casitas: Lawless, south of the border–style speakeasies get a grip on L.A.”
• Facing a group of presidents loudly critical of Washington, the U.S. government’s Voice of America broadcast is expanding its audience in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, VOA officials say.
• USA Role Under Spotlight in Venezuela Crisis with Colombia
• NAHJ Welcomes Dobbs’ Departure From CNN
• Chávez’s Next Target: El Salvador – Twenty-first century socialism may have stumbled in Honduras but it is being tried again in El Salvador.
• While a drought has put Caracas under widespread water rationing for the first time in years, for Venezuelans in this hillside slum it’s just more of the same.
• Venezuelan government controls over 700 media outlets
• Fears of a New Cold War in Venezuela and Colombia
• After deferring his dream to play in the NBA, Greivis Vasquez is returning to Maryland for his senior year. But in Venezuela, they’re more interested in what comes after that.
• Elizabeth Zambrano, Victor Zambrano’s Mother, Kidnapped In Venezuela
• Colombia said on Sunday it will appeal to the U.N. Security Council and the OAS after Hugo Chavez, the fiery leftist president of neighboring Venezuela, ordered his army to prepare for war in order to assure peace.
• Golf In Cross Hairs Of Venezuela’s President
• National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) still needs to raise $225,000 before the end of the year or cease operations and stop all programs for the rest of the year
• A Cuban blogger who has become an international sensation for offering frank criticism of her country’s communist system said she was denied government permission Monday to travel to New York to receive a top journalism prize. – Yoani Sanchez
• Thousands of Venezuelans congregated for candlelit rituals on a remote mountainside where adherents make an annual pilgrimage to pay homage to an indigenous goddess known as Maria Lionza.
• Former Venezuelan president Jaime Lusinchi has been hospitalized due to a gastric ulcer in Miami
• Peru will have Latin America’s lowest inflation rate this year, while Venezuela will have the highest, the IMF forecasts.
• Critics Say Chavez Targeting Opponents For Arrest
• According to Carmelo Mesa, a Cuban economist who’s a visiting professor at Tulane University in the United States, Venezuela bankrolled Cuba to the tune of $9.4 billion last year. This includes $2 billion to take account of the cost of subsidizing Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba. Venezuela sends oil to Cuba at a “preferential” price of just $27 a barrel.
• Venezuelan Ambassador to Travel to California For First Time Since Resuming Post