May 26 marked 56 days of continuous protests against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, during which journalists face aggression from police, armed collectives and protesters alike.
When Javier Valdez’s colleague Miroslava Breach was killed in Chihuahua on March 23 of this year, Valdez wrote on Twitter, “No Al Silencio” (No to Silence), a rejection of censorship and violence against the press in his country. Following his own murder, Valdez's colleagues have picked up those words to continue the fight.
Internationally recognized, award-winning Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas was fatally shot by unknown individuals early Monday afternoon, according to Ríodoce, the newspaper he co-founded 14 years ago where he was still a reporter.
After conducting a month-long census of freelance journalists working in Spanish in Latin America, researchers found that most are optimistic about the future of journalism.
Journalists from both sides of the border tackled modernization, fake news and corruption during the Bridging the Border seminar the day before the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) on Thursday, April 20.
In the final days of March 2017, several journalists were assaulted during anti-government protests in Venezuela, but recent attacks on journalists in this country have not been exclusively physical. Earlier in the month, a series of cyberattacks forced several Venezuelan independent media outlets to temporarily shut down their websites.
In the early morning hours of March 28, journalist Julio Omar Gómez's house was set on fire in Baja California Sur and the bodyguard charged with protecting his life was shot and killed. About 24 hours later and across the country, Armando Arrieta Granados was shot while arriving home in Veracruz. Both journalists escaped, but one is in the hospital in serious condition.
Venezuela’s National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) has ordered the suspension of CNN en Español and has kicked the network out of the country. Additionally, Andrés Eloy Méndez González, director general of the entity, said on Feb. 16 that the network will also be blocked on the internet.
Grupo Globo, the largest media conglomerate in Brazil and Latin America, announced on Jan. 19 that it would unify the newsrooms of its newspapers Extra and O Globo. As part of the process, the outlets fired more than 30 journalists. According to the editorial director of O Globo, Ascânio Seleme, the measure aims to streamline costs and implement “radical” changes, which should turn the focus of the outlets to digital production.
For Mexican journalists, covering la nota roja – or the crime beat – goes beyond being exposed to physical dangers. By living and working in high-risk areas, their constant and systematic contact with violence puts their mental health on the line.