Wikipedia:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources

News reporting in Venezuela is contentious, with various sources being reported by people of differing political views to be biased, manipulative, or outright lying. By consensus across the Wikipedia community, state-operated sources of Venezuela, such as Telesur, are unreliable. Some pro-opposition outlets have also been recognized as sensationalized sources, so their use should be properly attributed. Independent sources operating in the country and in neighboring nations, several using citizen journalism, are seen as more reliable for Venezuela-specific reports.

Venezuela was listed in the 2015 Press Freedom Index as 137th out of 180 countries, and its position has worsened since: in 2021 Venezuela was listed as 148 out of 180. and in 2023 it was listed in the 159th place, with its situation devolving from "difficult situation" to "very difficult situation" level. According to media protection organizations, Venezuelans "have been forced to find alternatives as newspapers and broadcasters struggle with state efforts to control coverage", with a growing trend of Venezuelans using online news media to bypass government censors. Various interpretations of laws, including the Law on Social Responsibility on Radio and Television and the Law against Hatred, have allowed for media outlets to be closed or banned for speaking against the government or similar actions said to be non-peaceful. For political censorship in 2019, see the article on Censorship and media control during the Venezuelan presidential crisis.

Beyond limited press freedom in Venezuela, sources may need to be more heavily vetted because of the conflicting government tensions. In an article on the United States, for example, different reliable sources with noticeable political opinions can still be relied upon to give the same news; using only one or the other to source that piece of news on Wikipedia is typically not an issue. Regarding Venezuela, the disputed President Nicolás Maduro has actually criticized Wikipedia about the article on his opponent Juan Guaidó during a period of edit wars in January 2019, when Wikipedia was blocked in the country for over a week, over technicalities of constitution and presidency as debated by the Venezuelan media. The different reliable sources' political opinions had found a time to shine through because of the unique situation: "facts" were unclear and "truth" depended largely on partisanship.

Generally reliable sources
Per a talkpage discussion and proposal within the WikiProject,1 the following sources — with their associated advice — are seen as generally reliable for news regarding Venezuela, specifically news that is not available from mainstream Western media and press associations. The Venezuelan branches of Reuters, the AFP and the AP are also seen as reliable. The Venezuela WikiProject has not discussed reliability of other sources in relation to the topic.

Deprecated or blacklisted
The following sources are a selection of sources often publishing about Venezuela and which have been blacklisted through RfC's. The below sources may be used to cite their opinions as a primary source; if used they must be attributed in-line.

Pollsters
By 2013, Reuters said that "political polls in Venezuela are notoriously controversial and divergent".

In 2024, newspaper El Tiempo names IdeaDatos and Data Viva as pollsters who results favor one of the candidates, in contrast to other polls.

NTN24 wrote in June 2024 naming Insight and IdeaDatos as those favoring one of the candidates, and stating that IdeaDatos and PoliAnalítico campaign for him actively.

According to an Efecto Cocuyo fact check, IdeaDatos published its first poll on 6 May 2024 – a 29 April to 3 May 2024 poll – and their data was re-published by multiple outlets that are in favor or one of the candidates. Efecto Cocuyo stated that IdeaDatos then had no history of publishing its own polls on its Twitter account since its October 2020 creation and until May 2024, and "no further evidence of its existence as a company". Methodological concerns include erroneous conclusions, statistical and sampling data missing or erroneous, and reliability data and margin of error are inconsistent. Efecto Cocuyo writes that similar problems were found in the publication of IdeaDatos second and third polls in May and June, and that the "firm's website does not have RIF [tax information], telephone number, email or physical address, names of directors or employees, or surveys before May 2024".

Similar issues were found with Data Viva ("recently created, with methodological flaws, omissions about its business identity and a history of low-quality studies"); earlier problems were also found in Hinterlaces polling and CMIDE.

As a rule of thumb, multiple polls should be used to provide a balanced and complete point of view.