The ‘Dangerous Assignment’ That Sent a Venezuelan Journalist Into Exile

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Venezuelan journalist Roberto Deniz began investigating problems with a government food program with his colleagues at the investigative news site Armando.info, he didn’t know that the reaction to his reporting would one day drive him to flee his home country.

For the past six years, he has been living and reporting in exile, helping to uncover a corruption scandal reaching from Venezuela to the U.S. and beyond.

A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela is a new documentary from FRONTLINE and Armando.info that follows Deniz as he investigates the controversial businessman Alex Saab and his connections to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Together with Juan Ravell, the film’s director, Deniz joins Raney Aronson-Rath to talk about Saab’s indictment and subsequent release from U.S. custody, and the consequences of reporting on corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela.

Stream A Dangerous Assignment on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or the PBS App.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last year the Biden administration released a controversial businessman from
0:06.5	US custody in exchange for the release of 10 Americans.
0:10.8	Major Prisoner Sw swap with Venezuela.
0:13.3	The U.S. was freed Alex Sob.
0:15.3	The U.S. giving up a close ally of Maduro in this trade.
0:19.1	The deal was the latest chapter in a corruption scandal that stretches from Venezuela to the US and beyond.
0:26.0	This is a story of corruption of kleptocracy on a scale that the world has not seen.
0:32.4	Journalist Roberto Denise has been covering the story for the Venezuela news site, Armando
0:37.4	info for years.
0:39.2	And for much of that time, he's reported from exile as he's faced legal threats from the government of
0:44.5	President Nicholas Maduro.
0:46.3	Why Nicholas Maduro is giving him so much power, so much business. That is the reason we decided to investigate.
0:54.8	A dangerous assignment is a new phone from Frontline and Armando info that tells the story of
0:59.8	Denise and the consequences he's faced for his reporting.
1:03.6	Denise joins me today, along with the director of the film, Juan Rivel.
1:08.2	I'm Rainey Aronson Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline, and this is the Frontline Dispatch.
1:33.0	The Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation committed to excellence in journalism and by the Frontline Journalism Fund with major support from John and Joanne Hagler. Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center,
1:38.0	dedicated to providing compassionate care and cancer specialists who are experienced in the cancer you have.
1:42.0	When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready. cancer you have.
1:43.0	When you hear the word cancer, their team is ready.
1:45.0	Learn more at Mass General.org
1:48.0	slash cancer.
	...

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