(http://globaljournalist.org)

Misinformation, arrests deterdemonstration coverage

Tens of thousands of opposition protestersmarched in the Venezuelan capital of Caracasthis month demanding President Nicolás

! A woman bangs a pot to protest Venezuela's PresidentNicolas Maduro in Los Teques on the outskirts of Caracas,

Venezuela, Sept. 7, 2016. Venezuelans are marching in citiesacross the country to demand authorities allow a recallreferendum against Maduro to go forward this year. (AP

Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

IN VENEZUELA, CONFLICT EXTENDSTO PROTEST REPORTING

Maduro be removed from office by a recall ref-erendum. The protests are the largest since vio-lent demonstrations shook the country twoyears ago.

But if you were observing protests on Sept. 1through the tweets of Maduro loyalist DiosdadoCabello, a member of Venezuela’s parliamentand its former speaker, you’d have thought tensof thousands had jammed Caracas’s streets insupport of the government. That’s because Ca-bello distributed a photo of a huge crowd ofpeople wearing red, the color of Maduro’s Unit-ed Socialist Party of Venezuela.

A member of the Venezuelan National Assem-bly posted an image on Twitter on the day ofthe protest showing a large number of Madurosupporters occupying the streets of Caracas.

La avenida Bolívar con nuestrohermano Nicolas Maduro. Pueblolibre, soberano en Paz12:27 PM - 1 Sep 2016

4,592 2,244

Diosdado C…@dcabellor

Follow

“Bolivar Avenue with our brother NicolásMaduro. Free, sovereign people in peace,” Ca-bello wrote.

It was soon discovered that the photo was froma 2012 protest, and news of the deception wentviral. But Cabello’s tweet was just one part ofthe Maduro government’s efforts to manipulatepublic images of the recall effort in a country inthe midst of economic crisis. Among its othertactics: banning the use of drones to take im-ages of opposition protests, barring foreign re-porters from entering the country and jailing areporter who shared video online of Madurobeing heckled in the streets.

Of course such strategies are hardly new inVenezuela, where over 370 websites areblocked, about a third of which were news sitesor blogs critical of the government (the largestshare were related to exchanging currency onthe black market), according to the PanAm Post.Under Maduro’s socialist predecessor HugoChávez, penalties were toughened for speechthat “offended” government officials and broad-casting regulations used to suspend and harasstelevision channels, radio stations and websites critical of the government, as documentedby Human Rights Watch(https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/05/venezuela-chavezs-authoritarian-legacy) and other groups.

During Maduro’s tenure, the Chávez’s strategyhas been extended to social media. In one in-stance, government critic , Inés González Arragawas jailed for over a year after tweeting that aslain member of parliament from Maduro’s par-ty was “a criminal who led a squad of terror andgave kids guns.”

Robert Serra no era un serhumano, era un criminal quecomandaba colectivos del terror yarmaba niños. ¡Así que viudas,dejen el PEO!9:33 AM - 3 Oct 2014

Inesita Terri…@inesitaterrible

Follow

To learn more about the Venezuelan govern-ment’s efforts to control coverage of the effortto recall Maduro, Global Journalist’s Tomás Ori-huela spoke with Carmen Beatriz Fernández, di-rector of the political consulting firm DataS-trategia and a political science professor atSpain’s Universidad de Navarra.

(http://i0.wp.com/globaljournalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Unknown.jpeg)

Carmen Beatriz Fernández(courtesy)

Global Journalist: There was a large protestcalling for Maduro’s recall on Sept. 1. Can yougive some examples of how the governmenttried to censor coverage?

Fernández: A few days before the protest, thegovernment began to enforce a rule that pro-hibited drones in order to avoid aerial picturesof the march. Alejandro Puglia, who works withthe president of the parliament [Henry RamosAllup, of the opposition Democratic Action par-ty], took videos from a drone, and he was ar-rested.

Also, the day after the protest, Maduro traveledto Margarita [a Venezuelan island in the Car-ibbean] in order to be surrounded by support-ers in a very pro-Chávez area in [the town of]Villa Rosa. He was met by people bangingkitchen pots and shouting insults. Maduro exit-ed his car and argued with the people. This was

filmed by dozens on their mobile phones and itspread nationally. The hashtag #VillaRosa end-ed up trending for two days.

The first media outlet to publish this was Re-porte Confidencial, and its editor Braulio Jatar(https://twitter.com/brauliojatara), was arrestedhours later at his home.

GJ: In advance of the Sept. 1 protests an al-Jazeera camera crew and three other foreignjournalists, including NPR’s John Otis, werekicked out of Venezuela. Is this typical?

Fernández: It was surprising. The Venezuelangovernment has been shutting off dissidentvoices, but they’ve been doing this kind of thingin much more subtle ways. [This] is going a stepfurther. They felt the protest was a threat totheir interests, and that’s why they tried to mini-mize the number of witnesses, even thoughthey knew it would have a negative impact.

GJ: Diosdado Cabello, a member of the legisla-ture, shared a fake photo of the protests show-ing the streets filled with government support-ers . What do you make of intentional misinfor-mation on social media?

Fernández: Cabello has a whole productionteam for his social and for his TV program. Itwasn’t just a mistake. The fact that he tweetedthis photo didn’t make sense because it waseasy to discover the truth.

Note: Fernández’s interview was conducted inSpanish and translated and condensed. With con-tributions from Anna Sutterer, Jonah McKeown

and Federico Maccioni.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier ver-sion of this story said Maduro was heckled on thestreets of Caracas. The episode occurred in VillaRosa.

Colombia (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/colombia/)

Hugo Chavez (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/hugo-chavez/)

Nicolas Maduro (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/nicolas-maduro/)

Press Freedom (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/press-freedom/)

recall (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/recall/)

Venezuela (http://globaljournal-ist.org/tag/venezuela/)

RELATED POSTS

(http://globaljournalist.org/2014/05/venezuela-rifts-grow-protests-persist/)

Venezuela riftsgrow as protestspersist(http://globaljournalist.org/2014/05/venezuela-rifts-grow-protests-persist/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/2016/09/venezuelas-descent-program/)

Venezuela’sdescent(http://globaljournalist.org/2016/09/venezuelas-descent-program/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/twice-fired-venezuelan-journalist-fights-on/)

Twice-firedVenezuelanjournalist fightson(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/twice-fired-venezuelan-journalist-fights-on/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/venezuelas-many-crises-program/)

Venezuela’s manycrises(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/venezuelas-many-crises-program/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/03/project-exile-venezuela-tv-journalist-finds-security-in-miami/)

Project Exile:Venezuela TVjournalist findssecurity in Miami(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/03/project-exile-venezuela-tv-journalist-finds-security-in-miami/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/fired-for-report-venezuelan-journalist-thrives-online/)

Forced to resign,Venezuelanjournalist thrivesonline(http://globaljournalist.org/2015/07/fired-for-report-venezuelan-journalist-thrives-online/)

PAST D IG ITAL EDIT IONS

( http://globaljournalist.jour.missouri.edu/digi-tal-edition/ )

ARCHIVES

Archives Select Month

()FOR PREVIOUS STORIES,

RADIO AND VIDEO PROGRAMS: ()

(http://globaljournalist.jour.missouri.edu )

OUR PARTNERS

(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)

miami/) online/)

(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)

(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)

(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)

(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)

© 2014 Global Journalist. All rights reserved.(http://globaljournalist.org/?p=2366)Global

Journalist is produced by the () Missouri School ofJournalism (http://journalism.missouri.edu/)