Caracas Chronicles

In Voltaire’s Candide, the character of Pangloss is hanged as a warning to others. I thought about this when reading the Miami Herald’s Jim Wyss tell, in his own words, the harrowing 48 hours he spent in custody at the hands of Venezuelan kleptocrats.

The money quote:

There were reasons to worry. This year alone, four reporters have been detained and 33 have been attacked in Venezuela, according to the Espacio Público free-speech organization. Tim Tracy, a U.S. filmmaker, was detained in April and held for more than a month — part of that time in a notoriously violent jail — before being expelled from the country.

And as the Inspector reminded me, Maduro often accuses the Miami press of being part of a cabal that wants to destabilize the government. It’s all part of what press freedom organizations view as increasing threats against the media in Latin America.

I know some of the foreign correspondents read Caracas Chronicles. So, putting aside the fact that you pros hate being the story instead of telling the story … does the Wyss affair make you scared to cover Venezuela? Does it make you think twice about the tone in which you write?

Feel free to mouth off (under aliases) in the comments section, or send me an email.