Misión Verdad is a news portal that describes itself as an independent investigative journalism website. It claims that, because of “sabotaging” coordinated by the U.S. government, it had to move its content from its original URL to a third-party platform (Medium) where its contents are now available.


Media assets

Portal: Misión Verdad

State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private Media (CaPr)


Ownership and governance

There is no information about how Misión Verdad is governed, but local journalists say that the outlet is staffed with people willing to propagate content promoting the government of Venezuela.

Source of funding and budget

There is no information about the source of funding behind Misión Verdad. Its editor, William Serafino, claimed that the portal is funded through donations from readers. According to local journalists, the outlet is funded by the Venezuelan government. They argue that there is no news portal that can produce so much content only through commercial revenue (which is scarce in Venezuela). The very few independent outlets in Venezuela are all funded by international donors.

Editorial independence

Although the outlet’s editors claim to be independent and argue that their mission to debunk lies about Venezuela propagated by western government is legitimate, independent experts and journalists in Venezuela say that the outlet is purely a promoter of the government’s interests. They recognize in Misión Verdad a pattern created by the Russian propaganda channels to counter the wave of legitimate, independent fact-checking initiatives by launching their own fact-checking outlets (a move aimed at creating chaos in the news ecosystem).

Misión Verdad has hosted content from people who have worked or still work with state institutions. The outlet is known for its work aimed at stigmatizing against human rights defenders.

There is no statute that would establish the editorial independence of Misión Verdad. The website, however, openly states that its main mission is to debunk false accusations and baseless attacks against the Venezuelan government.

No independent assessment/oversight mechanism to validate the editorial independence of Misión Verdad has been identified.

August 2023