A program was taken off the air after analyzing the situation of citizen insecurity

On August 13, 2013, journalist Ana Karina Villalba denounced that directors of Globovisión, a private TV plant, censored an edition of her program Tocando Fondo, after broaching the situation of insecurity in Venezuela with official spokespersons. The reporter became abreast of this situation from channel representatives who notified her that her program would be withdrawn from the scheduling grid. The directors informed the journalist that they took the decision of withdrawing her and her program from being broadcast.

As told by Villalba to IPYS Venezuela, the channel´s representatives informed her: “Your program is going on leave”. They notified her that her space would leave the TV screen for a few months, because the recording set had to be restructured, and the channel would have no place to record the show.

The journalist wrote in her Twitter account at @Anavillalba “I am sorry to inform: Globovisión decided to eliminate Tocando Fondo. Thank you all for your support; TV viewers, friends, culture and media people!” (https://twitter.com/ANAVILLALBA/status/366585814362226689).

The reporter explained that that program must have caused great unease, for it to be censored.

Villalba had invited official spokespersons including José Vicente Rangel Ávalos and María Wandoly Martínez, vice-minister and vice-minister for internal affairs and justice, respectively. Luis Karabín, director of the National Bolivarian Police, an organism dependent on the same executive portfolio, had also been invited. The program was to air two weeks later, specifically on Sunday August 11, 2013, but was not aired.

Tocando Fondo was a program with panelists which broach different visions on Venezuelan sociopolitical problems, which used to air on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

This situation occurred in a panorama of great tension in the channel, because several opinion and complaints-oriented programs, which had the greatest audiences in the TV plant, were taken off the air. Also, several journalists of that channel were removed from their positions due to internal pressures, and others left in solidarity with the closing of spaces for free expression.

Label: internal censorship