Better Late Than Never?

This cover takes me straight back to an episode from 2002.

During the unprecedented 2-month general strike against #chavez, I wrote an angry letter to @time stating how little attention we were getting from them (by “we” I mean Venezuelans and our political conflict). After all, it was Civil Society marching, protesting, and even temporarily shutting down small, medium and large businesses — and consequently losing A LOT of money — in order to confront a clearly authoritarian regime. It was a huge sacrifice by business owners, workers and society in general, all betting for a better future — or, best put, trying to avoid #disaster.

It was definitely newsworthy. Well, the young journalist in me thought it was. (And the older version of me does too.)

Yet, the only thing I read on TIME was barely a lukewarm, one-paragraph “story” about #Venezuela’s “political tension”.

As a TIME subscriber I must have received some 8 or 9 issues during the whole strike, so seeing only one tiny, superfluous paragraph in 2 months got me very frustrated. I was certain we needed all the support and the attention we could get from international media before it was too late. We needed to raise awareness internationally if we wanted some leverage against this new form of dictatorship. And I felt I had to reach out to them and make my point. Bear in mind it was 2002: Internet was in diapers, so email was the most powerful tool we could afford for such crusade.

To my surprise, my complaint didn’t fall onto deaf ears — well, sort of.

Weeks later, I got a response from TIME—and not a very happy one. I believe they sort of lectured me on journalism principles… Or was it about TIME’s ethics? Or its editorial process? I can’t really remember the details, but in short they made me feel my complaint was irrelevant.

After that, there was only one thing certain to me: there was no way TIME — or any other big, respected media for that matter — would dig deeper into the time-bomb (pun intended) Venezuela had become. I guess it only took them 14 more years of lies, corruption, death and devastation.

Better late than never? Honestly, I’m not sure.

God, I wish I had kept that email.