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Fusion Announces Primetime News Special #SOSVenezuela

Fusion Special on Continuing Crisis in Venezuela Hosted by Mariana Atencio to Air Wednesday, March 26 at 10:00 p.m., ET on Fusion

Fusion continues its in-depth coverage of the crisis in Venezuela with a primetime news special, #SOSVenezuela, airing Wednesday, March 26 at 10:00 p.m., ET on Fusion. Fusion’s Mariana Atencio, who reported from Caracas last month, will take viewers on a journey through the streets of Venezuela with a personal look at 10 days that shook the country. Atencio also speaks to Venezuelan assemblywoman Maria Corina Machado, one of the most high profile leaders of the opposition. Machado was recently stripped her of parliamentary immunity and has been threatened by the Maduro administration with charges of terrorism and treason.

Watch: Persecuted Venezuelan Lawmaker: Venezuela’s Situation is Dangerous for International Democracy

It’s been a month and a half since the first student protesters died in Venezuela and the number dead continues to grow. Young Venezuelans are speaking out against the high inflation and rampant violence they have seen under President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. Students have continued to protest in the streets despite a security crackdown, a local media blackout, and attempts by the government to censor the web and the airwaves.

More on Fusion’s Venezuela Coverage Here

The protests in Ukraine and the Russian intervention that followed have monopolized American media coverage while the events on this side of the globe in Venezuela have received only a fraction of the attention by most outlets. Fusion’s Jorge Ramos has spoken out about the events in Venezuela noting the silence of the media and international community – “A president who allows students to be killed has lost any legitimacy as a leader, but unfortunately Maduro has a powerful accomplice on the international stage: silence,” he said.

Mariana Atencio is a Peabody Award winning journalist, who was born and raised in Venezuela. She joined Fusion as a co-host of “Fusion LIVE” from Univision News in 2013, where she covered Hugo Chavez’s death along with previous presidential campaigns in Venezuela. She received a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for her documentary “Pressured: Freedom of the Press” (“PRESSionados”). She has a B.S. in Communications from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas and a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University.

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‘Fusion Live’ Debuts Tonight in Primetime

Pedro Andrade, Mariana Atencio, and Yannis Pappas can say goodbye to their early morning wake-up calls as Fusion’s morning show is moving to its new primetime home with a new name – ‘Fusion Live.’ Fusion CEO wrote of the move in an email to staff last week.

The show’s senior producer Javier Guzman spoke to Capital New York’s Alex Weprin about the new primetime program (@FusionLiveTV) which debuts tonight at 8:00 p.m., ET.

Fusion, the cable news channel owned by ABC News and Univision, is gearing up for the biggest change to its lineup since it launched in October of last year. One of the biggest tweaks is that the channel’s morning show, cheekily dubbed “The Morning Show,” will be moving to primetime at 8 p.m. starting tonight. And it’s getting a new name: “Fusion Live.”

“We kind of see it as a Tumblr page coming to life,” Javier Guzman, the executive producer of the show, told Capital. “On that Tumblr page you will have some serious news, you will have something funny, a short video that is funny, and our audience is OK with that, that is how they digest their media in normal circumstances, so we are trying to marry that on the show.”

Guzman also talked about building out the “Insignificant Breaking News” brand – 

Some of the content originated serendipitously. “Insignificant Breaking News” was the headline on “The Morning Show” when pop star Justin Bieber was arrested in Miami in late January on suspicion of D.U.I. Screenshots of the show and video clips from its coverage spread around Twitter, Facebook and Reddit like wildfire.

“With ‘Insignificant Breaking News,’ that stems from the conversation that was going on in the control room between myself, and the director, and the talent, and we said, you know what, 'let’s do this, why are we talking about this? This is our voice as a show,'” Guzman recalled. “We are exploring ways to take that concept and build it out. It is going to be a regular feature on the primetime show, we are seeing what it looks like as a recurring segment, using that kind of coverage as a model for when stories like that fit the bill, covering it from that perspective and that tone.”

Check out the full story over at Capital New York.