Caracas Chronicles

For many years, on the Venezuelan family table, one could always find a key element: the printed newspaper. It was usual to see dads and grandpas complaining about having an issue wrinkled and messed up before they read it, kids fighting for the comic strips and grandmas sitting apart with the crosswords. Every family used to have a favorite, depending on the region they lived in.

But during the economic and political crisis that has hit this country, little by little, the newspaper has disappeared from the life of Venezuelans through the collapse of the domestic media system and as part of a global transformation towards digital media that affects all links in the production chain―from distributors such as kiosks and newsvendors, to the editorial stance that journalists must follow when writing.

In the Venezuelan collective memory, the former are two characters that are intimately related to the press. The newsvendor and the kiosk embodied the main forms of distribution of this product. With their direct contact with the reader, they were for many decades part of the daily landscape in cities and towns. So, what happened to them when the newspaper began to disappear?

Eduardo is a newsvendor. He has been walking along Lara Avenue in Barquisimeto for more than 42 years after starting in this trade through a friend. Selling newspapers on the avenue became an important part of his life beyond being his main source of income: he even met his wife through this job, and although she passed away, she was the best thing he got from being a newsvendor. Through these long years, he knew the best times of the press were between the 90s and 2000s, with sales peaks during Christmas and carnival seasons. But today, everything has changed.

Eduardo’s daily work starts in the early morning hours as he goes to fetch the newspapers to sell. He waits for the dealer directly from the office of the press, and sells papers until approximately 10 am. But from selling dozens of issues to passers-by at one of the busiest places in the city, nowadays he only sells five on a good day. He’s had to sell other things on the avenue, such as lottery tickets, in order to survive. He’s there all morning, but he only sells one newspaper, La Prensa de Lara, because it is the only one still being printed in Barquisimeto: it costs 50 Bs per issue, or almost a dollar.

Since 2013, more than 70 editions ceased to circulate and left entire regions without a printed press, which entails a necessity for reinvention…

Not only the newsvendors had to change, kiosks too. There is the example of one of the main kiosks in Barquisimeto, located on Los Apamates Street, across from the Sambil, a popular mall in the city. It has been open as a family business for more than 40 years, reaching a sales peak in the mid-2000s as they sold more than 1,500 copies of regional, national and even international editions daily. From 2:00 and 3:00 am, trucks from Caracas used to arrive with hundreds of issues to sell, but nowadays, they do not even sell newspapers, having needed to diversify and start selling other items like food and stationery items, such as notebooks, pens, pencils, paper, markers, pastries, etc.

La Prensa de Lara is now the only newspaper being printed in Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara, and it’s published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. By 2021, only 22 newspapers were being printed in Venezuela―6 national and 16 regional―according to an investigation by Prodavinci. Since 2013, more than 70 editions ceased to circulate and left entire regions without a printed press, which entails the necessity for reinvention, to search for new ways to capture the reader and bring the news to them in an appealing fashion.

There are many factors that contributed to the disappearance of the press, but among the most prominent are the restrictions to obtain newsprint. In 2012, Chávez excluded this type of paper from the priority goods for import, which created a need for special import permits. Similarly, in 2013, the government founded the Complejo Editorial Alfredo Maneiro, responsible for production, distribution and marketing of various printed products, but press organizations reported problems for the acquisition of newsprint.

The newsvendor and the kiosk, as time passed, have become a distant part of the collective memory; every day they are seen less and less, a blurry part of a Venezuela that no longer exists.

Restrictions on freedom of speech also made Venezuela drop 32 places in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporter Without Borders between 2014 and 2019, currently occupying 147th place out of 180.  These restrictions have led to the closure of many media outlets. But other elements, such as the migration of advertising investment from written press to social media, reduction of the private industry spending on advertising, regional politics and the transition to social media played an important role in the demise of the Venezuelan press.

Written journalism is now multiplatform. Through websites and social networks, the way of consuming media has evolved, the reader now demands the news immediately, but there will always be people who go for the more traditional styles, specifically Gen X members and Baby Boomers who miss print, remembering the golden days of Venezuelan printed media, with the hope that it will someday return. On the other hand, Millennials and Gen Z recall the last years of the press and its decline, how the issues gradually disappeared from the tables, kiosks closed and the newsvendors vanished from avenues and street corners.

Venezuela has changed, and so has print media and the jobs that surround it. The newsvendor and the kiosk, as time passed, have become a distant part of the collective memory; every day they are seen less and less, a blurry part of a Venezuela that no longer exists. However, innovation and reinvention remain essential to shaping Venezuela’s future. Just as newspapers adapted to survive, newsvendors and kiosks in 2025 are obliged to keep looking for new spaces and products, navigating the challenges that reshaped their industry.