Clavel Rangel was in Miami with a friend when they heard the news. The United States had launched a strike on Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores. U.S. officials said the couple would be taken to New York to face criminal charges.
President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” the country on the northern coast of South America. The White House called it a “remarkable foreign policy triumph.”
But for Rangel, an exiled journalist from Venezuela and Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, a degree of fear came with the stunning news. Both she and her friend — also Venezuelan — still have family there. They began working immediately, reaching out to sources in the country to make sense of the situation.
For U.S. newsrooms, Maduro’s capture is a dramatic foreign policy story. For Venezuelan journalists, it’s far more complicated. As American outlets work to explain what comes next, many of the journalists with the deepest knowledge of Venezuela are hesitant to speak publicly, fearful of reprisal, skeptical of superficial coverage and unsure whether U.S. media can fully capture the country’s legal and political complexity.
The operation, just days into the New Year, captured the world’s attention. Public demonstrations and protests sprang up as Maduro, an unpopular authoritarian leader, pleaded not guilty in court to charges related to international drug trafficking and weapons charges. Many Venezuelans around the world celebrated his forcible removal from the country. In South Florida, Venezuelans took to the streets to cheer and dance.
“I’ve been looking forward to this day for so many years,” one demonstrator told Al Jazeera English. Many others denounced the seizure of Maduro, calling the operation U.S. imperialism in action.
Venezuelans celebrate in Santiago, Chile, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that President Nicolas Maduro had been captured and flown out of Venezuela. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Journalists have been in the middle of it all, working to cover the story with accuracy and nuance, despite many challenges. At least 14 members of the press were detained on Jan. 5 while covering the aftermath. Covering Venezuela is not easy, according to Rangel, who worked as a journalist there for years and is co-founder of the Venezuelan Amazon Journalists Network (in Spanish, Red Periodistas de la Amazonía).
“If you (an outlet) haven’t had correspondents in Venezuela over the last 10, 15, or 20 years, it’s difficult to approach the complexity involved — the political, ideological, and economic complexity of Venezuela,” Rangel said. “It’s a limitation.”
In a call with Poynter on Thursday, Rangel said she couldn’t yet assess the U.S. media’s coverage of Maduro’s capture and its implications for Venezuela. But she emphasized that some of the coverage may feel limited or superficial from news outlets that have not invested in significant reporting resources in Venezuela.
Breaking down the facts for the U.S. audience is very different from covering for the Latin American audience, Rangel said. What Trump did, she said, is seen by many as a violation of international law. But what has unfolded in Venezuela over time, she pointed out, is also viewed as violatory. In 2024, Maduro sparked accusations that his regime had committed fraud when he won a third term against opposition candidate Edmundo González. Rangel said that action violated the country’s national sovereignty.
Mariana Atencio, a Peabody award-winning Venezuelan journalist and former anchor and reporter for NBC and Univision, has also been closely following this story. The day after news broke of Maduro’s capture, Atencio shared some thoughts on her Substack: “I don’t usually use my Substack for politics, not because I don’t care and not because I’m afraid of controversy, but because I want this space to hold the human side of things: the emotional truth behind what we watch unfold. But this moment is too seismic to stay quiet. I’m giving myself permission to celebrate. Yes, I’m celebrating. I’m happy.”
To Atencio, many Venezuelans celebrated the news because of “two decades of lived captivity.” According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, more than 7.9 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, marking one of the largest displacement crises in the world.
In an appearance early last week on NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Atencio first thanked host Chris Cuomo for the platform. “Because one of the major criticisms that I have about the mainstream media coverage of this story is the lack of Venezuelan voices on shows,” she said. “And every time they show anti-Maduro protestors, there’s not a single Venezuelan in the crowds of protestors that they’re showing.”
Rangel shared advice for U.S. media outlets unable to enter Venezuela for reporting purposes: Seek insight from Venezuelan journalists with sources in the country who can provide context to what’s happening on the ground. As co-founder of the Venezuelan Amazon Journalists Network, Rangel said she was in touch with other Venezuelan journalists in the Venezuelan Amazon.
“I have colleagues who are declining interviews with international outlets or to be spokespeople because they fear the consequences for themselves while in Venezuela,” she said. “So you’re going to see less public voices and faces — with first and last names — speaking about Venezuela because of the risks journalists face.”
Days after Maduro’s capture, NPR’s “Morning Edition” featured an interview with a Venezuelan journalist in Caracas about life in the city. The man asked that NPR only use his middle name, Alberto, because he said journalists are targeted and threatened for speaking openly or negatively about the government.
Supporters of former President Nicolas Maduro take part in a government-organized evangelical gathering calling for his release after U.S. forces captured him, in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Organizations like Reporters Without Borders consider Venezuela to be very restrictive for the news media. Just after the strike in Caracas, a group of Venezuelan journalists in exile held an hourslong broadcast to explain and verify the military operation that ended in Maduro’s capture. According to LatAm Journalism Review, this coverage once again managed to break through a longstanding information blockade.
Ewald Scharfenberg, a journalist from Venezuela who now lives in Miami, said it’s important to note that Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez (who served as president of Venezuela until his death in 2013), declared the independent press an enemy of his regime early on in his presidency. That led to the shutting off of access to officials for comment, as well as an overall increased difficulty for journalists in Venezuela to do their jobs. But Chávez, Scharfenberg noted, still spoke with outlets outside of Venezuela. According to Reporters Without Borders, Maduro continued the “communication hegemony” policy established by Chávez.
Scharfenberg, co-director of investigative news website Armando.info, was one of many Venezuelans in the U.S. awoken by calls from family after the strike. He has been watching the developments closely and said outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post have provided ample coverage, due in large part to the access and resources they have in comparison to journalists in Venezuela, for example.
The coverage by U.S. media outlets is critical, Scharfenberg said, because Venezuela’s destiny is, in a way, being decided in Washington, D.C. He added that the press access restrictions in Venezuela make it difficult to grasp a comprehensive overview of what’s happening there. “There’s a transition happening that hardly anyone knows well in what direction it’s headed,” he said.
Rangel predicts challenges ahead for U.S. media outlets covering this story, including how to break down the contradictions that Trump represents for the U.S.’s own democracy, and what this all means for a democratic transition in Venezuela.
“A friend said that this represents a cognitive dissonance for many,” Rangel said. “But it’s reality, and we have to embrace all of this complexity.”
