The catastrophe caused by the recent earthquakes in Venezuela has unleashed an unprecedented citizen response on social media, which independent journalists have transformed into an "emergency public sphere" thanks to rigor, verification, and context.
The earthquakes that shook Venezuela had thousands of aftershocks, but they have been relived millions of times in the videos recorded on cell phones that have circulated on social media since June 24. Through them, we have met the survivors, the victims, the rescuers; we have rejoiced at the miraculous rescues, suffered with the loss of life, and been outraged by the government's lack of assistance and the abuses committed by authorities and security forces. We have also met the Venezuelans who cling to the hope of finding their loved ones many days later, and the dozens of unsung heroes who have dedicated themselves body and soul to the emergency. These videos have kept us awake at night, glued to the screen far beyond what is advisable. They have inspired and moved us to tears, showing us the catastrophe in an unprecedented way.
But let's be clear: those videos aren't journalism. They're raw material, unfiltered testimony, and therefore invaluable. Journalism begins when instinct is disciplined and information is subjected to method: when someone, with or without a press pass, decides to contextualize, compare, explain, and verify. That's what has distinguished this emergency: not only the amount of audiovisual material that has circulated, but also the civic instinct of those who understood the magnitude of what happened before the State itself acknowledged it and decided to report it.
From that reaction emerged a genuine public sphere of emergency response: a network of journalists, rescuers, content creators, and ordinary citizens who, through an avalanche of images, testimonies, and scattered reports, became one of the main mechanisms for understanding the tragedy in real time. Journalism has been just one element of it, but an essential one.
From instinct to method
One of the first to demonstrate this was Román Camacho , a crime reporter for Circuito Unión Radio, who began broadcasting from the collapsed buildings of Caracas and La Guaira on June 24th, when reporting was still nearly impossible due to the cell phone outage. With a sober and respectful style, Camacho has approached survivors and volunteer rescuers—many of whom are both—surrounded by rubble or in hospital beds, to offer us their experience in their own words: they are the voices of the earthquake, and they deserve the best treatment. His coverage has even encompassed the animal tragedy. In a recent post, he visited one of the shelters in La Guaira that has received more than 400 surviving pets —dogs and cats—waiting to be reunited with their owners or adopted.
Behind Camacho are veteran journalists—Aymara Lorenzo, Shirley Vernagy, Patricia Marcano, Valentina Lares, among many others—who have captured the essence of the tragedy, revealing human dramas and, in some cases, the corruption behind the construction of the housing complexes that collapsed. Media outlets like El Pitazo, Tal Cual, Efecto Cocuyo, Armando.info, and RunRunes have not only provided coverage: they are an example of resistance against the censorship imposed by Chavismo for years, and several of them are now among the more than 200 domains blocked in the country, 94 of which are news platforms, according to the most recent registry by Espacio Público. Alongside them have been content creators. Karen Brewer-Carías (Karenexplora), for example, has carried out remarkable educational work , creating visual guides to better assist victims and avoid the biological risks involved in removing bodies.
None of them waited for accreditation to do what needed to be done. Alongside them, a broader information network was formed, in which international media also participated, offering another perspective on the magnitude of the tragedy.
International coverage has been spearheaded from very different angles by El País and The New York Times, though it hasn't been without its challenges: foreign press had to be accredited, receive a wristband, provide their blood type , and travel only in official vehicles on a fixed schedule. Some had to wait for an internal "visa," with no clear duration.
Who decides what gets seen?
Access to La Guaira, the epicenter of the double earthquake, has been the clearest indicator of this desire for control. Since June 26, Diosdado Cabello, the regime's strongman, has demanded accreditation to access the disaster area. This has been yet another way of reminding the press who decides what can and cannot be seen. Conatel—the institutional arm of censorship—and the National Guard—the armed wing—don't make any decisions on their own: they carry out a decision made by others. Journalist Johan Álvarez, from VPITV, denounced this bluntly: the order to prevent the press from approaching the area seemed to be an instruction from "above." Gabriel Tinoco, a broadcaster transmitting live from a collapsed building in Caracas, was threatened with arrest by a SEBIN commissioner, who struggled with him to take his phone—a scene that anyone can find online today. International journalists were not exempt from harassment and intimidation either.
All these communicators, whether professional journalists or not, have formed an ecosystem that has made it possible to narrate the enormous drama of a cataclysm through its own protagonists.
Faced with the regime's blockade of Venezuelan media, social networks—some still inaccessible—have become a refuge for those who report and a reliable channel for a public thirsty for information in the information desert promoted by the government, even if we see major publications struggling amidst the rubble or asking uncomfortable questions of the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.
Espacio Público has described the emergency as “a stress test for the right to information in an already severely restricted environment.” This NGO documented journalists threatened with arrest, equipment obstructed in hospitals and rescue zones, and an administrative cordon that tightens and loosens as needed. Press freedom is still a long way off.
What's missing
In an age when information is as vital as water or electricity, blocking it in the midst of an emergency is not only absurd, it can cost lives and even constitute a crime. But the earthquake also revealed something that goes beyond censorship. The emergency demonstrated that when the state fails, society can find ways to inform itself, organize, and tell its own story: documenting a catastrophe almost in real time. Will this public sphere, which emerged so organically from the emergency, last? It's difficult to say. After the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a civil society with democratic demands emerged. Journalism, then, was essential in connecting social leaders and publicizing organizations, as admirably shown in Elena Poniatowska's *Voices of the Earthquake* and Carlos Monsiváis's *You Can Witness: Chronicles of a Society Organizing Itself*. And those movements contributed significantly to the end of the 70-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, which Mario Vargas Llosa called the “perfect dictatorship”.
None of this makes ending censorship any less urgent. On the contrary. If this tragedy proves anything, it is the value of a society capable of producing reliable information under pressure, even amidst restrictions, blockades, and threats. Venezuelans need a free and robust press now more than ever. Unblocking the more than 200 blocked websites would be the bare minimum required of a state in a state of emergency.
Boris Muñoz , El Pais Spain