These are the exiled Venezuelan journalists joining forces to report on Maduro’s ouster from afar

Earlier this month Donald Trump launched military strikes on Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The military operation was a momentous event for millions of Venezuelans, who have gone through hunger, political repression, a painful economic collapse and a massive exodus in the past two decades. 

Many saw the operation as an opportunity to restore democratic freedoms and remove the regime. Venezuelan journalists were hoping for something more specific: the end of a regime that has curtailed media freedoms, shut down news organisations, imprisoned reporters and sent others into exile. 

That’s why so many Venezuelans were so disappointed when Trump said he would  “run Venezuela” himself and decided to keep Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, as the country's interim head of state. 

Earlier this week I spoke with six Venezuelan journalists to learn more about the challenges faced by them and their colleagues at this juncture. All of them are respected reporters and editors who were forced to leave the country and now live in exile, reporting on a huge story while trying to keep their newsrooms afloat from afar. We discussed the future of independent journalism in Venezuela, what foreign reporters are getting wrong in their coverage, and how an independent press in Venezuela can be rebuilt.

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“Dying in silence” 

The free press has been under attack since Hugo Chávez rose to power in 1998. But repression increased dramatically after Maduro replaced him in 2013, with Reporters Without Borders ranking the country 160th out of 180 countries in the latest edition of its World Press Freedom Index.

More than 60 newspapers have gone out of circulation in the past 12 years due to the government monopolising the import of newsprint and other printing supplies. More than 200 radio stations have gone out of air as the government stripped many of their broadcasting licenses. This leaves most independent reporting in the hands of digital outlets, whose news sites are often blocked by internet providers at the request of the government. 

Many of these repressive measures have been trickling since 2013. But the pressure has intensified since the 2024 presidential election, which the opposition won according to independent observers. In the past year, Venezuela has seen a marked increase in censorship and journalists’ arrests. As of 2026, 23 journalists remained in prison while 40 more were facing prosecution. 

The journalists I spoke to underline how much the situation has deteriorated in the last year. One of them Ronna Rísquez, who coordinates the Alianza Rebelde Investiga, an editorial coalition of Runrun.es, El Pitazo and TalCual, three Venezuelan newsrooms known for its investigative output. 

Rísquez told me that journalists in the country can’t operate openly as they fear being prosecuted, arrested and even deported if they come from abroad. Increased repression, compounded by an ongoing economic crisis, has caused many journalists to abandon the profession altogether and many newsrooms to be forced to reduce their staff, she said. 

“The journalists who remain in Venezuela work in fear, work anonymously, and work with resources that are almost non-existent in every sense, both in terms of material resources to work with and resources to survive,” Rísquez said.

All the other journalists I spoke to (including her) operate from abroad, where they arrive escaping government persecution and economic hardship. While all their outlets have kept independent journalism alive in Venezuela, their funding crisis was exacerbated by the withdrawal of USAID and other international organisations, and has presented new challenges for these newsrooms. 

Venezuelan journalist and newsroom security consultant Luis Carlos Díaz, who himself was arrested in Venezuela in 2019, says that one of the biggest hurdles for journalists in Venezuela is simply economic precarity, as their salaries were reduced to dust and left them unable to keep doing journalism in the country. 

“The cuts that took place at the beginning of 2025 affected so many around the world,” he said. “But they affected Venezuela twice as much because in many cases there were no other sources of funding. It’s important to take into account, though, that no media outlet or NGO can reveal its sources of funding as they would be criminalised if they did so. So for many of these outlets, it felt like dying in silence.”

The ousting of Maduro

Maduro’s capture hasn’t changed the situation for the Venezuelan press. Earlier this week, at least 14 journalists were detained while reporting on the legislature’s inaugural session. This is not new. The Venezuelan government has arrested journalists multiple times particularly in the context of elections and civil unrest. 

Although most of these journalists have since been released, Patricia Marcano, an investigative journalist with Armando.info, told me this is business as usual for the regime. 

"This confirms that we continue to live under an authoritarian and dictatorial regime that limits media access to official information and restricts the free press and freedom of expression,” she said. “These arrests are also a way of sending a threatening message [to journalists in Venezuela and beyond].”

César Batiz, editor of news outlet El Pitazo, told me that the detention of these journalists provides a good snapshot of the current situation. “I am not going to celebrate what has happened until I see that my colleagues and I can practice journalism freely in Venezuela,” said Batiz, who is currently in exile. 

Both Batiz and Marcano have heard reports of government officials checking phones at checkpoints. This, compounded with the fact that the government has enacted a decree that threatens to arrest anyone who celebrates Maduro's fall, doesn’t give Batiz confidence that change has come to the country. 

“Freedom of expression does not exist in Venezuela. Journalists can’t work in peace. Maduro may have left. But what happened was not a change of regime. It was a change of the head of the regime,” he said.

A media alliance in place

Despite the repression, Venezuelan journalists have continued to report on the capture of Maduro. Since 3 January, editors of a few established news outlets have joined forces to bypass internet blocks through streaming marathons, reading news in real-time and providing updates to audiences.

Adrián González, co-founder of the Venezuelan fact-checking organisation Cazadores de Fake News, told me that more than 15 independent outlets in Venezuela began to create a reporting alliance right after the 2024 election.

"This alliance has remained in place and we are collaborating routinely by co-publishing, conducting joint research, and providing joint coverage,” he said. “We are trying to overcome the obstacles we face by joining forces.”

Luz Mely Reyes, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the independent outlet Efecto Cocuyo, is part of this initiative too. The alliance, she told me, allows editors to coordinate efforts in this context of shrinking funding and increasing repression. 

“We have managed to coordinate the efforts of both journalists on the ground and journalists in exile,” she said. “When you are in exile, you have an extra layer of protection because, for the time being, you are not exposed to being captured.” 

Venezuela on the front pages 

This week Venezuela has been at the top of the front pages of most global news organisations. This has provoked mixed feelings within the group of journalists I spoke to. On one hand, they think it is important to report on the circumstances of the operation. On the other hand, journalists are critical of coverage that often lacks depth, is susceptible to regime narratives, and is used to further political agendas.

One of the key grievances I heard is that global outlets often report on Venezuela through the lens of their own country's domestic politics. This is particularly true, they said, in the United States, where Venezuela has often been used in the context of political battles between Democrats and Republicans. 

Rísquez said that this instrumentalisation of the country’s problems is painful for Venezuelans. “They are often comparing Venezuela with the United States, and they are two different things with such different contexts,” she said.

Luis Carlos Díaz, who’s followed by almost 100,000 people on Instagram, provided me with several examples from Spain, Brazil and Colombia, where Venezuela is often weaponised by right-wing and left-wing factions to attack one another. Financial outlets focused almost exclusively on the oil  industry, showing little concern for whether Venezuela is a democracy as long as business continues. 

“It is very difficult to find news outlets that do not exploit the Venezuelan cause for their own domestic struggles,” Díaz said. 

González, who focuses on investigating disinformation, complained about global ( and especially American) outlets leaving out the historical context of what has happened in the country. For example, he pointed to articles critical of María Corina Machado that occasionally mischaracterise her in ways that align with regime propaganda. Batiz stressed that international media has reflected a narrative that benefits Delcy Rodríguez, positioning her as a "moderate" or the only person capable of leading a peaceful transition to democracy.

“There is a disconnect between what is being reported by the independent Venezuelan newsrooms and what’s reported by US news organisations,” said González, who stressed they are not giving up: “From within Venezuela, with our limited resources and limited reach, we are still trying to present the Venezuelan point of view.”

How Venezuelan journalists keep reporting 

The situation right now is as uncertain as it could ever be. At the time of this writing, the regime has released some political prisoners and Trump has said he plans to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in the next few days. But things look very fluid and the situation might change both for Venezuelan journalists and for the country as a whole. 

The journalists I spoke to are tempered by a deep sense of uncertainty and the immediate reality of continued repression. Their aspirations focus on a return to a true democratic system, the restoration of media freedoms, and the economic recovery of the country’s media ecosystem.

Being optimistic about the future remains very difficult for Marcano, who stressed that the regime is still in place, just with a different head of state. But she also told me that Venezuelan newsrooms are a prime example of how resilient the news media can be in the face of repression. 

“There are some difficult days and months ahead for the Venezuelan press,” she said. “But I would also like to emphasise that Venezuelan journalists always find a way to continue reporting, and that is extremely valuable despite the risks.”

Batiz said that the transition towards a healthy media ecosystem does not only depend on a robust democratic transition, but also on regaining access to financial resources, not only from international grants but also through more traditional revenue models. 

“The future of independent media in Venezuela depends, first and foremost, on freedom of expression and, secondly, on access to resources,” he said. “There are two phases here: access to international cooperation resources and access to resources in Venezuela and other markets.”

Luz Mely Reyes, who’s been reporting and leading her newsroom from exile for some time now, believes that by working together Venezuelan journalists can succeed in this difficult period. 

These outlets, she stresses, have been doing journalism from exile while working with reporters on the ground. Despite the constraints they have experienced, independent journalism has always been able to adapt to produce meaningful coverage. 

“Right now, there is a kind of resistance journalism in Venezuela, carried out by independent media outlets, and this has to do with the fact that we understood that we were operating in an authoritarian environment,” Reyes said. “At this crucial moment we showed the capacity to raise to the moment and come together to do the coverage we have done. I truly feel this is a valuable contribution, because this story must also be told with a Venezuelan accent."