The 70th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), an organization that brings together media owners and editors of the Americas, condemned the “direct and indirect censorship and physical attacks on journalists” that have occurred in the last six months.
The recent murder of María del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a physician and citizen journalist known on Twitter for her reports of cartel activity in northern Mexico, has sent shock waves through the state of Tamaulipas and shaken journalists working in citizen news networks across the region.
Paraguayan journalist Pablo Medina Velázquez, murdered in the northeastern Canindeyú department while working on assignment, is the third journalist to be killed in the country this year and the latest in a series of journalists to be killed in the region in recent years. His death underscores the dangerous and deteriorating conditions for journalists working along the Brazilian border.
Journalist and activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro was abducted in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo and tortured en route to Puebla after publishing a book, titled the "The Demons of Eden," on an investigation that linked local politicians and police to a child pornography and prostitution network.
Mexican activist Atilano Román Tirado was killed on Monday while giving a live radio broadcast in Mazatlan in the state of Sinaloa. Listeners of Román Tirado’s weekly radio show reported hearing gunshots after intruders entered the station and broke into the studio where the community leader was broadcasting.
A Honduran appellate court has reinstated a 16-month journalism ban on news anchor Julio Ernesto Alvarado, the latest in a rally of court decisions and appeals since Alvarado was charged with criminal defamation for segments, alleging corrupt behavior of a university dean, aired on his TV program “Mi Nación” (My Nation) in 2006.
When talking about politics, the 100 most relevant Colombian journalists with the most followers on Twitter openly share their opinions and are increasingly likely to include links that lead readers to websites other than their own. The findings were announced in a study presented by the University of Texas in Austin at the recent annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Media (AEJMC) in Montreal.
Increasing pressure on traditional media in Venezuela over recent years has forced journalists critical of the government to move online in search of refuge. The transition has spurred the creation of several small publications online and has changed the way that Venezuelans, especially those critical of the government, share and receive information.
The newspaper industry may be declining, but its number of Twitter followers is not. Among top newspapers in Latin America, Venezuelan and Colombian publications claim the most Twitter followers, according to our recent survey, which included a sample of leading newspapers across the region.
Colombian journalist Javier Dario Restrepo and Mexican journalist Marcela Turati have been announced as the 2014 winners of the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism (FNPI) Acknowledgement of Journalistic Excellence award.