Collaborate or Die:

Journalism on the Tightrope

Ronna Rísquez

Venezuela

There Is Fear

• 16 journalists imprisoned
• 477|Venezuela is the country in the Americas with the highest number of journalists in exile

Censorship and News Deserts

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* More than 400 media outlets shut down in the last 20 years

• It created a “Hate Law” and a “Law Against Fascism” to criminalize journalists

• Doing journalism in an authoritarian context is like walking a tightrope
• When you walk that tightrope in Venezuela:
• on one side are the criminal groups
• and on the other side are the State security forces, ready to strike

COLLABORATE OR DIE

In this context

this year we took on a major challenge: investigating a case involving a criminal group and three authoritarian governments that lie, break the law, and violate human rights.

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We investigated the case of the 238 Venezuelan migrants who were sent by the U.S. government to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

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For the first time, we carried out a collaborative investigation with U.S. outlets: ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

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* ARI (Investigative Journalism)

• Runrun.es (Human Rights)
• TalCual (Politics)
• El Pitazo (Regional Reporting)

* Cazadores de Fake News (Fact-Checking)

• ProPublica (Human-Centered, In-Depth Reporting)
• The Texas Tribune (Local Coverage)

Migration-related disinformation�Hate

Fact-checking

OSINT

Venezuelan Databases

238 Venezuelan migrants were accused of being gang members by the U.S. government and were sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador without any judicial process

In March 2025

• 6 media outlets from the U.S. and Venezuela
• 4 from venezuela
• 2 from the U.S.
• More than 4 months of investigation
• Over 20 journalists in different cities across Venezuela, the U.S., and Chile
• More than 150 interviews with relatives, police officers from five countries, academics, lawyers, and U.S. security agency officials
• 8 databases reviewed
• We built 4 new databases, each with different characteristics

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-el-salvador-deportees-criminal-convictions-cecot-venezuela

WHAT DID WE DO? HOW DID WE DO IT?

• 238 people: each story was an investigation in itself. We had to reconstruct every case to determine whether they were actually criminals or not.
• We managed to create biographical profiles for all 238 migrants who were sent to CECOT.
• First, we gathered their identity data: full name with all surnames, date of birth, and Venezuelan ID number. This was essential to conduct more accurate and reliable searches.
• Because they were migrants, many had lived in several countries
• We interviewed the families of more than 100 men, the detainees’ lawyers, human rights activists in the U.S., and police officers from different agencies, cities, and countries.
• We obtained photos of more than 200 of them before they were released

WHAT DID WE DO? HOW DID WE DO IT?

• We reviewed court documents from the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as from Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador — the countries where many of these migrants had lived before arriving in the United States.

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• We searched Venezuelan identity-information platforms, health records, social security databases, and U.S. immigration records.

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• We obtained a leaked dataset containing more than 1,400 names and identity details of Venezuelan gang members.

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• We built a database with 238 rows and more than 60 columns

Master database

* To track this information, we used combinations of Google search operators and advanced Google searches, entering the name of each detainee to locate links with information from multiple sources:

1.Published interviews with family members�2.Media reports�3.Identification, criminal, legal, and migration databases�4.Leaks we were able to obtain

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WE RELIED ON AI

• The volume of information was so large that we used AI to filter and organize it.� AI helped us fill 25 key columns in the master database, person by person. Once these 25 columns were completed, we manually verified each data point to catch any errors.

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• We created a Custom GPT chatbot to deliver the data in an organized, tabulated format.

� Automating part of the process with AI was extremely helpful.

• For the translation of the 238 bios, we also used AI, after which they were reviewed by a Spanish-speaking journalist and editors.

https://projects.propublica.org/venezuelan-immigrants-trump-deported-cecot/es/

The Men Trump Deported to a Salvadoran Prison

SOME FINDINGS

• We published four reports.
• Our investigation showed that the majority of these people were not criminals
• They had not committed crimes in the U.S.
• They did not belong to the TDA gang
• They were unjustly sent to CECOT, in violation of their rights and the law.
• Four months later, all 238 were released in a shadowy prisoner exchange between the governments of Donald Trump, Nayib Bukele, and Nicolás Maduro.

WHY COLLABORATE?

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ProPublica reached places we couldn’t:

• Courts and sources within U.S. government security agencies
• Information on migration status
• Venezuelan government sources who only speak with foreign media

ARI and Cazadores reached places ProPublica couldn’t:

• Families of the detainees in Venezuela
• Police and courts in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, and Peru
• Information on the Tren de Aragua
• Personal information about the detainees

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ProPublica had the human, technological, and financial resources to cover travel expenses, build the bios, and handle photographic material. This provided us with a certain sense of security. Having access to ProPublica's resources allowed us to conduct fieldwork, which is crucial in contexts where there is misinformation and a lack of access to data.

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*Protecting sources� We obtained highly valuable information from current and former U.S. government officials, as well as Venezuelan police officers who could not be identified.�

*Avoid re-victimizing the families and the 238 men� Interviews were not conducted in a single day; we spoke with each family member multiple times. We decided to use information selectively.

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*Used security protocols�We used special digital security measures for managing databases and sharing sensitive information: ProtonMail, Signal, and restricted access.�

*Avoid legal threats and attacks from the three authoritarian governments involved� To do this, we followed an exhaustive process of verification and review for every piece of data. All texts were reviewed by ProPublica’s lawyers before publication.

Collaborative journalism saves us in many ways

Security in journalism has several dimensions:

* Types of security: physical, digital, legal, and psycho-emotional

* Who we need to protect?: ourselves, our sources, victims, the information, our personal environment, and the media outlet we work for

* The experience and knowledge of the team members allowed us to do more accurate and reliable work. And that reduced the possibility of attacks from the governments under investigation.

* Collaborations also help prevent attacks from being targeted individually. When there are six media outlets from different countries involved, it's more difficult to attack them.

*We had weekly meetings and transformed our small newsrooms into a binational newsroom, with diverse perspectives. This also enriches and enhances your work.

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*Collaborations multiply strengths� Several organizations come together to complement each other.

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*ProPublica also won: this has been its most republished article in Spanish-language media.

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OTHER COLLABORATIONS THAT HAVE SAVED US

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• Collaboration with Convoca Perú and others: Dorada Opacidad, on the illegal gold trade in Amazonian countries

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• Collaboration of 13 Venezuelan media outlets and Connectas (Colombia): La Hora de Venezuela
• https://www.connectas.org/paises/lahoradevenezuela-2024/

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• Collaboration with El Espectador (Colombia): Sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrant women in Latin America by the TdA
• https://www.elespectador.com/investigacion/el-tren-de-aragua-detras-de-la-explotacion-sexual-de-migrantes-de-latinoamerica/

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Collaborative journalism

has become

our safety net.

It protects us and saves us.

We conduct internal collaborations among Venezuelan media

as well as transnational collaborations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Establish agreements
• Designate a coordinator
• Use security protocols
• Assign tasks and responsibilities
• Budget and resource allocation
• Create timelines
• Appoint a person responsible for follow-up
• Set regular meeting schedules (fixed days and times)
• Define workflows
• Provide updates and track project progress

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Clear deadlines
• Accountability
• Define credits
• Identify potential sensitive points
• Designate spokespersons for interviews
• Develop a common pitch
• Behind-the-scenes narrative
• Distribution of awards
• Evaluate the collaboration / results and objectives achieved
• PLANNING (including contingencies)

Ronna Rísquez

ronnarisquez@gmail.com

@ronnarisquez IG / X