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Nicols Maduro's regime has cracked down on the free press.

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Alejandro Marcano stared into the camera and read the days news to millions of Venezuelan viewers on Globovisins 24-hour network. Suddenly, the studios windows erupted in a rain of glass. Gunshots ricocheted through the room. A militant colectivo that supported the government circled the lot and threw tear gas into the building. Marcano realized he had two choices: sprint through the gunshots or die of asphyxiation.

On that terrifying morning of January 1, 2009, Marcano chose to run and barely escaped the brazen attack on the TV station. But his career as a journalist in his homeland was over; nearly four months later, Marcano left Caracas for Miami.

His story is far from unusual. As Nicols Maduros repressive regime tries to consolidate power despite rising protests, independent journalists face even more danger than the average Venezuelan. Amid government crackdowns and violent threats, more than 100 reporters have fled to Miami in recent years, according to Sonia Osorio, resident of the Association of Venezuelan Journalists Abroad (APEVEX).

Many like Marcano have now set up shop in South Florida, where they fight from abroad to keep telling the story of their countrys desperate struggle. We need to be participants of history so this doesnt happen again in another country, Marcano says in Spanish.

From the moment he seized power in 1999, Hugo Chvez faced accusations that his Bolivarian Revolution violently stifled dissent. But it wasnt until 2002 that Chvez really began to crack down on the media. As the press reported ever more critically on his governments power grab, Chvez threatened to revoke broadcasting licenses from TV and radio stations. After suppressing a coup in 2002, Chvez blamed adversarial media and launched an all-out assault on the free press.

Technically, Venezuelas 1999 constitution guarantees freedom of expression. But in 2004, Chvez pushed through a law forbidding stories that incite or promote hatred, foment citizens anxiety or alter public order, or disrespect authorities. News organizations could comply or shut their doors. Meanwhile, the government began revoking broadcast licenses and acquiring media outlets, eventually controlling 13 television networks, more than 65 radio stations, one news agency, eight newspapers, and a magazine.

After Chvez died in 2013 and his acolyte Maduro took power, violence against journalists became commonplace. Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad, a Venezuelan organization that fights for freedom of speech and the press, reports 279 journalists have been attacked for their work between March and June of this year alone. Five journalists have been killed since the Bolivarian Revolution.

Marcano lived through that bloody history firsthand. A native of Carpano, an eastern coastal city of 200,000, the TV reporter joined Globovisin, a station that had long been a critical check on the government, in 1995. But after Chvez grabbed power, the network began practicing a degree of self-censorship.

The directors started putting on lighter programming, Marcano says. They started lowering the tone.

Still, Globovisin didnt stop critiquing the regime. Thats why the colectivo attacked the station in 2009 an assault that Marcano and his colleagues were certain was authorized by Chvezs government.

Alejandro Marcano, left, now reports on Venezuela from Miami

Courtesy of Alejandro Marcano

In recent years, journalists who buck the party line can face violent backlash. Orian Brito, an online and TV reporter, was visiting Miami in January of 2012 when he found a photo of children back in Caracas armed with heavy machine guns. He discovered the children were given the weapons by colectivos, with support of the government, and published his findings in Reportero 24, an online paper. Suddenly he faced the worst week of his life.

First, a state TV network, Venezolana de Televisin, began attacking him and airing his personal information. His bank accounts, Facebook and Twitter accounts, email, and phones were all hacked. His family received threats and was interrogated about where Brito got his information and photos.

Brito decided he couldnt risk returning to Venezuela. My family told me, Dont come back,? he says in Spanish. ?Dont come, because theres no guarantees. Something happens to you, and who responds? Who cares??

Other reporters say their families became targets when the government didnt like their work. Miguel Mundo was a reporter at Las Noticias de Cojedes, a Caracas newspaper, when he began writing about ties between a group of narcotraffickers and the government. After several stories, Mundos paper was bombed with Molotov cocktails. Then, in January 2012, Mundos wife was kidnapped from a gas station, beaten, and tortured until Mundo agreed to leave the paper. A few weeks later, he and his wife hopped a late-night flight to Miami with their children and applied for asylum.

There are still many professional Venezuelan journalists that maintain the will and the disposition to keep working amid everything thats happening in Venezuela, Mundo says in Spanish. Meanwhile the regime does everything to try to violate and force the journalists that try to do an ethical job in the country.

As mass protests have shaken Venezuela this year, the reporters who remain say the threat of violence is omnipresent. Miguelangel Caballero, a freelance journalist, says all journalists there take a risk.

Your life and physical integrity are in danger before the attacks of the government, the security officials, and the paramilitaries, called collectivos, that attack and rob the professionals of the press, Caballero says in Spanish.

Jos Ral Gerere, a 21-year-old journalist, has been producing stories through social media channels while working as a salesman at a mall. Gerere says it isnt always easy to get accurate information with all the commotion of the protests.

It is complicated and difficult, but in spite of everything, one must be extremely firm in the face of constant criticism, threats, or whatever they wish to do, Gerere says in Spanish.

Back in Miami, the journalists who have left say they feel an obligation to keep reporting. APEVEX, founded by Osorio and two other colleagues in 2013, helps reporters like Brito get back on their feet when they arrive. Osorio says they have 50 official members in Miami today.

Some have found work at ex-pat publications, like Mundo, who became a reporter at El Venezolano in Orlando. But that paper recently closed, so hes looking for work in Miami.

I came here a little reluctant to work in journalism, says Mundo in Spanish. I was stressed with what had just happened.

As for Marcano, hes made a new career in Miami out of reporting on the daily crisis unfolding in Caracas on Mart Noticias, the U.S.-government funded station that broadcasts into Cuba.

On a recent Thursday at the Mart studios in Doral, Marcano stands in a dressing room in a lilac button-down, patting the sweat from his shaved head under vanity lights. The makeup artist makes casual conversation with the two interviewees getting prepped for their time on camera.

How long have you been here? he asks. Theyre both from Venezuela. In this dressing room, Miami becomes a cemetery for the lives and professions left behind.

Once in the studio, Marcano can barely stay still as he directs his crew at lightning speed. He recounts stories before the recording begins, making his guests comfortable under the glare of a dozen white lights and three cameras.

The producer counts down in his earpiece, loud enough to emanate throughout the quiet room: Three, two, one. Marcano does the sign of the cross before he begins recounting the latest protests and crackdowns in his homeland.

Bienvenidos a Venezuela en crisis, he says.

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Dozens of Venezuelan Journalists Flee Censorship and Violence to Report in Miami - Miami New Times

Academy School District 20 leaders removed a "young adult" book from a middle school library in an act of censorship or diligence, depending on whom you ask.

An appeal to lift the ban on "Perfect Chemistry," by Simone Elkeles, from the library at Challenger Middle School was denied, setting a dangerous precedent, said James LaRue, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, a unit of the Chicago-based American Library Association.

"It's not as if anybody was being forced to read the book," he said. "Let's not be so afraid about what's going on in the world that we discourage our children from reading."

D-20 board members said the issue is not one of freedom of speech, but rather doing their job to not expose young students to unsuitable adult topics.

Board members unanimously agreed at a July 20 meeting to uphold a superintendent designee's ruling that the book is "not age-appropriate for a middle school audience because of pervasive descriptions of graphic sexual encounters, drug/alcohol use, violence and use of profanity."

"This book should have never made it to the shelves of a middle school," said D-20 board member Larry Borland. "This is not about censorship; it's about a school system making a reasonable policy decision that the language, sexual content and violence in the book are inappropriate for children who are 11, 12 or 13."

A book review committee of professionals and parents from Challenger unanimously disagreed and appealed the decision. The superintendent's designee, Jim Smith, assistant superintendent for administrative services, initially agreed with the committee but later reversed that decision.

The group submitted a 92-page appeal to the board. The author also wrote a letter in defense of the book.

"This is a bigger issue than just one book," Challenger Middle School librarian Gina Schaarschmidt told the board.

"Librarians are required to provide materials for all students. A middle school has a wide range of maturing levels, and we must honor all of them."

Books deemed "young adult" have stickers indicating they are for eighth-graders or students 14 and older.

A parent of a sixth-grader had complained about bad language and sexual references in "Perfect Chemistry," described as a cross between Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," the musical "West Side Story" and the movie "Grease."

The student, who was officially not old enough to obtain the book from school, had taken it and hid it from her mother, who found it under her pillow.

"Some of our students are ready for controversial content," said librarian Schaarschmidt. "They also know they should talk to their parents about the books. Different families have different sensitivities to controversial topics. Let parents choose for their own families."

The book has not been prohibited from high school libraries in D-20, the region's second-largest public school district with about 26,000 students.

The story, set in Chicago, depicts the relationship between an affluent white girl and a Hispanic boy, who wants to have sex with her as part of a gang initiation. The two become friends, talk about problems in their lives and fall in love.

The book explores how people from different backgrounds come to understand one another, exposing students to diversity issues and critical thinking, LaRue said.

"Parents don't want to confront the truth that their children are growing up," LaRue said. "By removing this book, you don't remove the problems from society - you make it harder for people trying to deal with it and find information that could help them."

D-20 board members said they find the book offensive in various ways.

"This book is one giant clich, one negative stereotype after another, constant sex, drugs and alcohol use by teenagers, which implies everyone does it, a lot of profanity, and the protagonists repeatedly make poor choices and it's OK," said board member Linda Van Matre.

Board President Glenn Strebe counted the number of times certain profane words and sexual references, such as masturbation, appear in the book. He read the list aloud, prompting a warning of caution on the online video of the meeting.

"Typically, at the American Library Association, we say you have the right to say, 'This is what I want my child to read,'" LaRue said. "What gets worrisome in the public environment is to say, 'I don't want anyone else to read this either.' That's what you do when you remove a library book."

Two other library books at Challenger also have been questioned and pulled, Schaarschmidt said, and the parent who started the action has requested an inventory of all books in the school library.

To parents who criticize bad language and sexual references in teen books, LaRue responds: "Do they watch TV? Are we saying there is no sex and no swearing in public schools? When someone writes a book, they try to make it realistic. I always say it's safer to run across a problem in a book than it is to find out about it on the streets for the very first time."

Read more:
Book banning in Academy School District 20: Censorship or diligence? - Colorado Springs Gazette

2Pac vs. Biggie. Elizabeth I. vs. Mary, Queen of Scots. The Jets vs. The Sharks.

Add to the list: Jewish American playwright David Mamet vs. Jewish American playwright Paula Vogel. There will be blood. And there will also be strongly worded New York Times quotes.

How did the grudge between these two great households, both alike in dignity and Pulitzer prizes, begin?

It was discovered recently that David Mamet, known for clipped dialogue in works like Oleana, has instituted a clause through his licensing company which prohibits theaters producing his work from sponsoring post-show talks within 2 hours of performances. The penalty? A cool $25,000 fine. In other words, theaters would have to throw around a significant amount of their operating budgets to hear questions like, How did the actors memorize all those lines?

Mamets given reasoning is that he wanted the impact of his play not to be emotionally truncated by a structured discussion between the actors and their audience. This is not a surprising sentimentin my experience David Mamets plays, which range from blundersome to scorchingly brilliant, all give off a vibe of a creepy uncle who lives to monologue to young women. But is this prohibition censorship?

Yes, according to firebrand playwright and professor Paula Vogel, who would know, since she literally wrote the play on censorship. The acclaimed Indecent, a meditation on Jewish art, history, and censorship, which was resuscitated by enthusiastic audiences after poor ticket sales threatened its shuttering, is currently running on Broadway. Vogel told the New York Times that she enjoys talk backs for her own and others plays, and that they can range from painful to Dr. Ruth dancing in the aisles. Of Mamets ban she said:

The gauntlet, it seems, has been thrown. When will Mamet and Vogel meet for a gentlemens duel? When will we be privy to a Pulitzer-worthy rap battle? Is there any chance of a dance-off, or perhaps, a one-act-off?

As we wait for Mamet to respond to Vogels diss, we issue a challenge of our own: the theater that produces a David Mamet play, throws a two-hour-and-one-minute happy hour, and then opens the floor to a raucous, drunken talkback is the theater that may save the American arts establishment from itself.

If you are a theater with a plan like this, please call us. And more importantly, invite us.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny.

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'Indecent' Playwright Paula Vogel Calls David Mamet's Talkback Ban 'Censorship' - Forward

Over the past decade and half, the streets of Venezuela have become a battlefield for journalists. This year, the country came third-to-last in the2017 World Press Freedom Index, withindependent NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) naming Venezuelas situation difficult. The independent medias virtual blocking from official sources, and the active persecution practiced by Nicols Maduro and his government and Hugo Chvez before him against critical voices, are some of the biggest obstacles these professionals face.

The examples are many just read about Chilean-Venezuelan political prisoner (now on house arrest) Braulio Jatar, or New York Times reporter Nicholas Casey, who wasbanned from the country in October 2016.Reports abound of the countless arbitrary arrests and assaults suffered by reporters, camera crews, and photographers in the recent protests against Maduro and his constituent assembly referendum.

The shift in how information is shared in Venezuelas mass media can be traced back to Chvezs silencing of TV station RCTV 20 years ago. A large percentage of TV & radio stations and print publications are now government-owned, and only share what Venezuelans have come to know as the official version of events; the majority of the remaining private outlets recur to self-censorship in order to stay out of trouble.

This means Venezuelas citizens have practically just one place where they can find out whats going on in their own country: the Internet. And here too, there are obstacles. Venezuela has the slowest internet connection in Latin America, and a penetration of just 53% of which only 2% represent low-income communities. Right now, its becoming more and more common for opposition politicians to broadcast their press conferences on Periscope, for example, or to witness police enforcement excesses on Facebook Live transmissions.

In the context of these past 100+ days of protests, a group of journalism students from Montevila University, in Caracas, have stepped in to try and fight journalisms good fight. They turned their thesis into El Tambor a full-fledged independent online news medium, which uses tools like infographics, videos, photos, and animations targeted to millennial audiences. What began as a four person outfit is now a team of 45 young people based in Caracas and an Instagram account with over 70,000 followers with a passion and a sense of duty to keep their fellow Venezuelans informed.

Their special coverage of the almost-daily demonstrations that have been going on in Caracas has required them to remain on the frong lines, which means their reporters are often risking their lives in the middle of violent actions from police, military, and even paramilitary groups. Thats why El Tambor has started a crowdfunding campaign to acquire equipment to protect themselves in these situations, like gas masks, bulletproof vests, safety helmets, as well as additional technology to keep doing their job.

We spoke to Jorge Lander, co-founder of El Tambor, to learn about their experience as an independent news medium the social turmoil of todays Venezuela.

What are some of the obstacles journalists face today while doing their job in Venezuela? Every day when we go out to cover the demonstrations in Venezuela, we have to wear bulletproof vests, gas masks, safety helmets, and we have to identify all of our equipment with press tags to ID ourselves. Still, three of our reporters have been assaulted by both government police forces and by violent paramilitary groups looking to stop us from doing our job. Despite all these threats, we remain determined, informing our citizens and the rest of the world about whats going on, because thats our role as journalism students.

How has the experience been for the El Tambor members covering these ongoing 100+ days of protests? Going out to do coverage gives us mixed feelings and emotions. At one moment, youre photographing a protest full of chants and posters against the government, and minutes later you start seeing people badly hurt because of repression by police enforcement officers. We risk our lives doing our job because, with this censorship and lack of information, our society needs us. In spite all of this, seeing the final result seeing the debates generated by the news and knowing that our audience is thinking critically about what we post, makes us proud and gives us strength to go on.

In this particular moment, whats the importance of online media outlets like yours which inform about whats going on in Venezuela? In the middle of the censorship we experience in Venezuela, digital media has been fundamental for sharing whats going on here. Thats why the responsibility we assume as a medium is increasingly bigger; were committed to the country, and thats why all the information we post on our website and social media is rigorously confirmed. Weve witnessed how people are trusting online media more and more; theyre basically the only windows Venezuelans have to know whats going on in the country.

As journalism students, how do you see the future of your profession in a country like yours? We face Venezuelas situation with optimism. We believe deeply that there will be a positive change in our country, politically and socially speaking. Thats why we keep working with care, using the few resources we have at hand, and always fighting to overcome the obstacles. Because we know were responsible for building the future of our country; its in our hands to build tomorrows journalism. We firmly believe well be pioneers in communications here and, amidst the crisis, we see a space for learning and opportunities that will guide us to a bright future.

Donate here to support El Tambors crowdfunding efforts.

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Venezuelan Journalism Students Are Fighting Media Censorship. Here's How You Can Help - Remezcla (blog)

Photo courtesy of Jon King

History Professor Steven Levine is a specialist in East Asian affairs at the University of Montana. Fluent In Chinese, Levine was partly responsible for bringing the Confucius Institute to the state, a decision he now says was a mistake that has opened the door to Beijing soft power.

When I was at the Mansfield Center as Associate Director, I was partly responsible for bringing the Confucius Institute to the University of Montana, and, frankly, now I regret it because the Confucius institute, which is not particularly active actually at UM, is in fact an instrument of Chinese soft power.

Levine says the Confucius Institute offered money and language opportunities to the cash-strapped university, but he has come to be very critical of the educational structure of the institute.

The teachers are very carefully vetted to make sure that they dont differ one syllable from any of the official lines in Beijing, Levine said. As you get beyond the basic ABCs, so to speak, of Chinese, the books that are used and the teachers that are teaching them are forbidden by their contract from speaking about things like Tibet, for example, or Taiwan, or Liu Xiaobo, the Noble Prize winner that just died. They are constrained and censored basically.

Levine says it is unfortunate that Montanas education system cannot supply language teachers and funds to teach one of the worlds most important languages, rather than rely on Beijing.

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Professor Criticizes Beijing Censorship At University of Montana's 'Confucius Institute' - Newstalkkgvo