MIAMI – A reporter for KPRC’s partner station in Miami was detained Wednesday in Venezuela.
According to WPLG-TV, Cody Weddle’s home in Caracas, the country’s capital, was raided by authorities. Weddle and his assistant, Carlos Camacho, were taken into custody.
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Station management said they have been unsuccessful in their attempts to reach Weddle.
"We are working through various channels to get as much information as we can and to see that Cody is released," said E. R. Bert Medina, president and CEO of WPLG-TV. "Cody has been dedicated and committed to telling the story in Venezuela to our viewers here in South Florida. The arrest of a journalist doing his job is outrageous and unacceptable."
Weddle’s last contact with the station was Tuesday, a day after he reported on the return of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Officials at the State Department said they are aware of the journalist’s detainment.
"The State Department is aware of and deeply concerned with reports that another U.S. journalist has been detained in Venezuela by Maduro, who prefers to stifle the truth rather than face it," Kimberly Breier, an assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, wrote in a tweet. "Being a journalist is not a crime. We demand the journalist's immediate release, unharmed."
Weddle and Camacho are the latest of a string of journalists to be detained while reporting on the crisis under embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.