The 17th International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ), a conference about online journalism organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas in the city of Austin, Texas from April 15 to 16, advocated for the discovery of issues currently of concern to digital media around the world.
On April 13, a Brazilian court sentenced Marcos Bruno Silva de Oliveira to 18 years in prison for involvement in the 2012 murder of journalist Décio Sá. This is Oliveira’s second trial; he appealed the first sentenced and had it annulled.
The mid-year meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), which took place from April 8 to 11 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, concluded discussions renewing its support for press freedom and condemning the continuing violence suffered by journalists on the continent.
Journaist Ivan Pereira Costa was shot outside his home in Cujubim, Rondônia, in northwestern Brazil. His wife, journalist Ediléia Santos Silva, told G1 that the attempted murder may be related to her husband's work.
Businessman Ronan Maria Pinto, owner of São Paulo newspaper Diário do Grande ABC, was arrested on April 1 as part of Operation Car Wash, an investigation into corruption in the Brazilian government and various companies. The investigation has fueled a political crisis in Brazil that reaches the top levels of government.
The director of Complejo Editorial Alfredo Maneiro (CEAM for its initials in Spanish), the Venezuelan state enterprise in charge of selling newsprint to print media outlets in the country, was sued for what the complainants said is the discriminatory allocation of newsprint paper that caused newspaper El Carabobeño newspaper to end its print edition, according to information from the NGO Espacio Público.
Nearly 100 journalists from 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean worked on the global investigation known as the Panama Papers that is making headlines across the world this week.
Joining the ranks of anonymous whistleblower platforms that have emerged around the world in recent years, eight media and nonprofit organizations have launched an online platform enabling Peruvian citizens to leak information to journalists.
Due to a lack of newsprint, regional newspaper El Carabobeño in the state of Carabobo, Venezuela stopped circulating its print edition after 82 years. The paper reported the news in an editorial in which it qualified the event as a “blow to freedom.”
After a TV crew was taken hostage in Paraná, a station invaded in Goiania and eight reporters beaten in São Paulo, on March 10, UNESCO and representatives of Brazilian media corporations delivered a letter to the country’s Minister of Social Communication calling for action to protect journalists and to ensure the media can work safely during the coverage of corruption investigations in the country.