The National Assembly (AN) with a Chavista majority installed work commissions to advance in the reform of the Law on the Exercise of Journalism in Venezuelawhich dates back to 1994.
This Wednesday the second vice president of the Permanent Commission of People’s Power and Communication, Carola Chávez, said that they seek to adapt the legal instrument to “the new times”, without offering further details on what changes they will introduce.
In Venezuela, according to the Law on the Exercise of Journalism, you need to be registered in the National College of Journalists (CNP) and have a bachelor’s degree in Social Communication to be able to work.
Chávez stressed that by creating these working groups they will begin a discussion to find out the opinions of journalists in the country, regarding the changes that the legal instrument that governs the exercise of this profession in the country must have.
“We are going to install the work commissions for the review and reform of the Law on the Exercise of Journalism…. revision is always necessary; the law dates back to a time when journalism was done with fonts and the edition had to be closed at midnight because there was no time. But times have changed and journalism is much faster, much more inclusive,” the parliamentarian told Venezolana de Televisión.
He also called “popular power” to join the debate. During the installation of the work commissions, the coordinator of the Platform of Communicators and Journalists of Venezuela, Alcides Castillo and Armando Carias for the Necessary Journalism Movement, both organizations related to Chavismo, were present.
Decline in print media
Since Nicolás Maduro came to power in 2013, most newspapers have stopped circulating in Venezuela. In part forced by the economic crisis and by the decision of the Chavista Executive to centralize the sale of newsprint through a parastatal body that was created for it: the Alfredo Maneiro Editorial Complex.
One of the last big newspapers that stopped circulating was El Nacional in December 2018 and following 75 years in which it remained on newsstands.
Until 2013, some 90 print media circulated in Venezuela in 20 states of the country, according to data from the NGO Institute of Press and Society. But in 2018, 66 had ceased to circulate permanently and others did so with severe restrictions such as a decrease in print run, pagination and even daily to weekly frequency.
digital locks
And with the rise of independent digital media, a report by Venezuela Sin Filter showed that during 2021 at least 59 websites corresponding to 68 domains were blocked in Venezuela between January and December 2021.
Of this total there were 36 pages belong to digital mediaaccording to the data registered by the organization VE Sin Filtro in its annual report.
These blockades are led by the state telephone company that controls the government, cantvFollowed by Movistar, Digitel e Inter.
The 2020 AN, in which Chavismo has a large majority, did not have on its 2022 legislative agenda the discussion or reform of the Law on the Exercise of Journalism.
Photo: National Assembly
