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I don't know if their film will be seriously edited, or not shown at all, but these two journalists, who work for a major TV company, found Venezuela to be completely different to how it is portrayed in the Western media. Venezuelans are not hungry and now grow a lot of their own food. And as it's tropical, there's plenty of fruit around, much of it for free just hanging off trees. They say one mistake Maduro made was to pay off Venezuela's different debt too early, in light of how the country was going to be economically attacked later on. They also mention how Columbia laundered its cocaine money through Venezuela which effected its currency, and how the Venezuelan elite tried to ruin its currency too. British photojournalist Alan Gignoux and Venezuelan journalist-filmmaker Carolina
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I don't know if their film will be seriously edited, or not shown at all, but these two journalists, who work for a major TV company, found Venezuela to be completely different to how it is portrayed in the Western media. Venezuelans are not hungry and now grow a lot of their own food. And as it's tropical, there's plenty of fruit around, much of it for free just hanging off trees. They say one mistake Maduro made was to pay off Venezuela's different debt too early, in light of how the country was going to be economically attacked later on. They also mention how Columbia laundered its cocaine money through Venezuela which effected its currency, and how the Venezuelan elite tried to ruin its currency too. British photojournalist Alan Gignoux and Venezuelan journalist-filmmaker Carolina
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I don't know if their film will be seriously edited, or not shown at all, but these two journalists, who work for a major TV company, found Venezuela to be completely different to how it is portrayed in the Western media. Venezuelans are not hungry and now grow a lot of their own food. And as it's tropical, there's plenty of fruit around, much of it for free just hanging off trees.
They say one mistake Maduro made was to pay off Venezuela's different debt too early, in light of how the country was going to be economically attacked later on. They also mention how Columbia laundered its cocaine money through Venezuela which effected its currency, and how the Venezuelan elite tried to ruin its currency too.
British photojournalist Alan Gignoux and Venezuelan journalist-filmmaker Carolina Graterol, both based in London, went to Venezuela for a month to shoot a documentary for a major global TV channel. They talked with journalist Paul Cochrane about the mainstream media’s portrayal of Venezuela compared to their experiences on the ground.
Paul Cochrane (PC): What were you doing in Venezuela, how long were you there and where did you go?
Alan Gignoux (AG): We went in June 2018 for a month to shoot a documentary; I can’t disclose what channels it will be on right now, but it should be on air soon. We visited the capital Caracas, Mérida (in the Andes), Cumaná (on the coast), and Ciudad Guayana (near the mouth of the Orinoco river).
PC: How did being in Venezuela compare to what you were seeing in Western media?
Carolina Graterol (CG): I am a journalist, I have family in Venezuela, and I knew the reality was very different from what the media is portraying, but still I was surprised. The first thing we noticed was the lack of poverty. Alan wanted to film homeless and poor people on the streets. I saw three people sleeping rough just this morning in London, but in Venezuela, we couldn’t find any, in big cities or towns. We wanted to interview them, but we couldn’t find them. It is because of multi disciplinary programmes run by the government, with social services working to get children off the streets, or returned to their families. The programme has been going on for a long time but I hadn’t realized how effective it was.
PC: Alan, what surprised you?
AG: We have to be realistic. Things look worn down and tired. There is food, there are private restaurants and cafes open, and you could feel the economic crisis kicking in but poverty is not as bad as what I’ve seen in Brazil or Colombia, where there are lots of street children. Venezuela doesn’t seem to have a homeless problem, and the favelas have running water and electricity. The extreme poverty didn’t seem as bad as in other South American countries. People told me before going I should be worried about crime, but we worked with a lady from El Salvador, and she said Venezuela was easy compared to her country, where there are security guards with machine guns outside coffee shops. They also say a lot of Venezuelan criminals left as there’s not that much to rob, with better pickings in Argentina, Chile or wherever.
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