Caracas Chronicles

Barinas newspaper De Frente is the latest casualty of the lack of newsprint which is affecting many regional papers in Venezuela.

As an extra wrinkle, they aren’t even opposition: they’re pro-government! (I guess being generally chavista isn’t good enough these days: you gotta be run directly by SIBCI.)

De Frente’s director Oscar Palacios said that because of the lack of funding, the paper’s printed edition is on hold indefinitely. De Frente will continue on its digital edition.

Other Barinas newspapers made changes to save newsprint, but they’re only safe until December.

Last week, the Chamber of Regional Newspapers (CMR) met with the National Assembly’s Commission on Media. The solution agreed for now is a “technical roundtable” between the papers and government entities like CADIVI, SENIAT or Bolipuertos. Good luck with that.

But that’s no problem for the communicational hegemony: The day before such meeting, State media (including newspaper Correo del Orinoco), received its second additional credit in two months. Not just that, apparently some “cultural foundations” have more than enough money to cover Caracas wall-to-wall with hate propaganda posters in no time.