Digital and social media activity continues to increase throughout the world, and Latin America is no exception.
What began as a simple interest has turned into a passion project for Verónica Sanchis Bencomo. Through her website Foto Féminas, the photographer publishes monthly features in Spanish and English that highlight the work of female photographers in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Now Sanchis has taken her work from the web to a library.
Cuban digital media site 14ymedio is betting on a new membership program for readers to ensure its independence and increase engagement.
On Oct. 3, the governor of Puerto Rico announced that 63 of 69 hospitals in the U.S. territory were “operational.” It was an unbelievable achievement since Hurricane Maria had made landfall almost two weeks prior as a Category 4 hurricane. Regardless, a local non-profit focused on investigative journalism sought to uncover the truth.
Over the span of one year, U.S.-based Spanish-language broadcaster Univision and Salvadoran digital investigative site El Faro partnered to investigate and map the experience of Central American refugees. The result is a bilingual four-part multimedia project released in October, “From Migrants to Refugees: The New Plight of Central Americans,” which profiles several refugees from the region at different stages in their journey to safety.
Following the October murder of Mexican photojournalist Edgar Esqueda in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, a cellphone video sent to a former police officer spread on the internet. It showed Esqueda, bound and on his knees, offering the names of crime reporters at newspapers across the state. In response, San Luis Potosí Gov. Juan Manuel Carreras ordered immediate protection measures—a police patrol car for every reporter named in the video.
Although the promise the internet would be a way to create a global village has, to some extent, been achieved, digital media have also allowed the production of hyperlocalized and hyperspecialized information. In Brazil, where 66 percent of the population is connected to the Internet, social networks have allowed the creation of hyperlocal media – pages and groups that focus on a neighborhood, a place or even a street.
Journalists were the targets of anti-press sentiment and actions from officials, security forces and citizens leading up to and during the Oct. 15 regional elections for 23 governorships in Venezuela.
A new tool is available to Latin American newsrooms looking for protection against cyber attacks.
International and Puerto Rican media have set up shop in the Puerto Rico Convention Center, creating a de facto newsroom in the same building where officials give press conferences and citizens look for resources.