Correo del Caroni pushes back against Newsprint-geddon - and fails
Today’s edition of Ciudad Guayana daily Correo del Caroni had terrible news for its readers: its daily edition will cease this Friday, July 31st and the following Friday the paper will become a weekly paper.
One of the few independent media outlets in the entire Guayana region, Correo del Caroni has struggled since last year thanks to the reduction of available newsprint. Last September, the paper stopped printing on Saturdays and Sundays, and months before it was forced to cut from three sections to just one.
But Newsprint-geddon has been unmerciful: early this year, Correo del Caroni’s night editor Leonardo Suárez Montoya told journalist John Otis from the NGO Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) about the ordeal they’re facing: “It’s a huge challenge. How do you say what you have to say with less space?”
The paper decided to not negotiate with the State’s newsprint-provider CEAM to protect its editorial line, and instead is working to improve its online presence through the web site correodelcaroni.com. Correo del Caroni wants to stay as “the house of ideas” (as it calls itself), instead of being a propaganda-filled “thought artillery”.
Our readers are not alone and won’t be alone. The political, social and economic crisis force us to be more creative, to multiply our faith and to intensify our efforts, translating them in better information.
Our circulation, now digital, is a moral obligation. There’s no time for discouragement.”
The hegemony is disciplined to shut down dissident voices. But when it comes to messaging? Not so much.
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