Clara Zid, September 2025
On July 28, 2024, Venezuelan security forces arrested over 100 teenagers, aged 14 to 17, during protests related to the national elections. Several of the youths were reported missing by neighbors through a government mobile app. Detainees were held alongside adult criminals, subjected to inadequate food, and transferred to facilities far from their families. Tragically, one girl died in custody.
Runrunes was there to document these stories in its dedicated section on overlooked human rights abuses: Derechos Humanos Olvidados (Forgotten Human Rights). Carmen Riera, executive director of Runrunes, explains: “The work we did with the mothers of those detained was important. We know how much they appreciated our support because they thanked us in person.”
Runrunes is an independent Venezuelan media outlet. It was born from a column by Nelson Bocaranda Sardi in El Universal, which was censored after revealing Hugo Chávez had cancer. In 2010, his son, Nelson Eduardo, created a blog that quickly became a refuge for investigative journalists—and later, a fully-fledged newsroom.
Carmen Riera co-directs Runrunes alongside editorial director Luis Ernesto Blanco. She joined the team in 2015, after leading the photo and audiovisual journalism departments at a major media outlet, where she managed a team of 70. “Switching from visual to writing was very challenging, especially since there were only ten of us here and we had to do everything ourselves.”
Working in a newsroom that is constantly monitored by the government has been, in her words, “very challenging, because these have been the most difficult ten years in the country’s history.” She adds: “Sometimes I wake up with stomach pain after a sleepless night, consumed by thoughts of how to earn more money—and how to protect ourselves physically, psychologically, and digitally.” She describes it as “exhausting to lead a media outlet in a country under a dictatorship, carrying the responsibility of protecting your team.”
The Trump administration’s decision to cut international cooperation funds dealt a significant blow to Runrunes. They had to lay off five journalists, leaving only eight. On top of that, they face delays in receiving payments from Google Ads, and visibility has dropped due to AI-generated search summaries. “Now, when people search, they get a chatbot summary and no longer visit the web site,” she explains.
Runrun.es’ audience has declined: “We’ve come to understand that the website is now more of a historical repository, an archive.” In Venezuela, news is now consumed mainly through social media. Runrunes is active on X, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and WhatsApp, which are growing every day, with hundreds of thousands of followers, in a country where the X network is censored and all independent media have been blocked since 2020.
“They are copying China’s censorship model”
“They are copying China’s censorship model,” says Carmen. According to the latest reports, the government also intends to censor WhatsApp: “In group chats, most people have learned not to talk about politics. You never know who might be informing the government. It’s like Cuba. In fact, many people have been jailed just for saying something about Maduro or the government on WhatsApp.”
In this tense environment, Runrunes’ investigative reports have had a huge impact and won many national and international awards. Carmen highlights “OLP: The Mask of Official Terror in Venezuela”, published in 2017, as their most award-winning report. It was the first time they worked with a security advisor, as they had to travel to areas controlled by dangerous state forces.
These forces would enter towns and kill those they considered criminals. But, Carmen says, “many of them were innocent—and even if someone is guilty, we don’t have the death penalty. You can’t just go in and kill people indiscriminately.”
Runrunes not only documented the death toll, but also uncovered the methods used by these forces: “They would show up at someone’s house with a mobile phone, order the father or a family member to step outside, and then injure or kill them on the spot.”
Another challenging investigation was “Canaima: Paradise Poisoned by Gold”. Journalists had to pose as tourists to speak with tour guides, indigenous people, and miners. “If the mining mafias had realized they were reporters, both the journalists and their sources could have been killed,” Carmen explains.
“Venezuelan Prisons: Independent Republics of Crime” is another award-winning investigation, published in 2022. Journalists infiltrated prisons disguised as relatives of inmates. They exposed the pranes—the inmates who act as prison bosses—and how the state allows them to control the system. After the report, the government dismissed the prison minister and announced reforms.
“The government have never contradicted us or come after us directly because we’re very careful about how we write”
Despite the weight of these reports, Runrunes has not been directly targeted by the government. “They’ve never contradicted us or come after us directly because we’re very careful about how we write,” says Carmen. “As we say here, we always have the donkey’s hair in hand”—meaning they always have strong evidence and airtight information.
Beyond its reporting, Runrunes runs the initiatives Monitor de Víctimas, whose data has been used by the UN and Human Rights Watch in their annual reports. The section was launched in 2016 when “Caracas was one of the three most violent cities in the world, but there were no official statistics,” Carmen says. Each Monday, crime reporters would visit the morgue and get conflicting death counts.
Ronna Rísquez, the outlet’s then investigative coordinator and an expert on organised crime, proposed building a database to keep track. Carmen, meanwhile, traveled to Mexico and saw how Animal Político documented drug war casualties—and they adapted the methodology.
Their team used a 34-question form at the morgue, collecting data on the victim’s age, skin color, number of children, where they were killed, and more. Unfortunately, Monitor de Víctimas had to shut down recently due to lack of funding.
“When international cooperation dried up, the government painted us as sellouts and stateless. They claimed we were crying,” Carmen recalls. “We had to respond politically.” So they did.
Carmen is the Venezuelan ambassador for SembraMedia, an NGO that helps digital media outlets diversify their income in pursuit of sustainability. In Venezuela, 40 independent media outlets are part of the organization. “A group of 15 of us decided to launch a campaign,” explains Carmen, and they organized a Teletón, a marathon to raise money on 17 May 2025.
“It had a big impact, especially politically, which is what we were aiming for.” They raised $20,000. “That doesn’t solve all our problems, but it’s a first step and a good example of collaborative journalism,” she says.
“We do a lot of joint investigations—for safety and to have greater impact”
Runrunes also belongs to La Alianza Rebelde Investiga, a partnership with the Venezuelan media outlets Tal Cual and El Pitazo. Carmen is a strong advocate for collaboration: “We do a lot of joint investigations—for safety and to have greater impact.”
Internationally, they have collaborated with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Connectas in Colombia. Other partners fund research into issues like borders, migration, and corruption. “They give us a general topic, and we decide what to investigate,” Carmen explains.
Carmen’s work doesn’t stop there. She’s also general coordinator of the Network of Women Journalists Building Peace in Venezuela, a project of the Venezuelan Instituto Prensa y Sociedad Venezolana. “It’s been a challenge —I didn’t know much about peace-building— but I’m a structured person, and I’m good at coordinating,” she says.
The network includes 26 journalists. “It’s been a wonderful project. I’ve met women community leaders who are fighting for women’s rights and against gender violence,” she explains. The network also investigates how climate change or inflation affect women—issues Carmen has brought into Runrunes’ coverage: “We want to highlight how women are affected in different ways, something rarely addressed in the media.”
For Carmen, it is essential to follow up on human rights violations, particularly political imprisonment. “There are still more than a thousand people in jail,” she says. And this, she adds, is Runrunes’ mission:
“Our commitment is to continue denouncing, informing, and ensuring that these cases are recorded in history—so that justice can one day be done.”
Runrunes is hosted with VirtualRoad.org and mirrored with Bifrost since 2021.