The recent surge of legal actions against private media outlets in Venezuela has caught the attention of several journalism organizations, who have described them as attacks on freedom of expression.
A court in the Mexican state of Veracruz revoked on Aug. 8 the sentence against a man who claimed to have been tortured in order to confess to murdering Mexican journalist Regina Martínez, reported news magazine Proceso.
Investigative news agency A Pública launched on August 8 its first collective fundraising project for independent reporting projects. Using website Catarse, the goal will be to raise enough money for 10 grants of 6,000 Brazilian reais ($2,640 USD) for Brazilian journalists to conduct their own investigations, which will be selected by the project's donors.
Guatemalan journalist and radio host Luis Lima was killed in the early morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6 in front of his radio station in the province of Zacapa, on the southeast side of the country, newspaper El País reported.
As part of the peace negotations in Colombia, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) asked last Friday for public financing to create their own media outlets, reported the news agency EFE.
Leocenis García, editor and director of the Venezuelan news media group 6to Poder, was charged and held at a military base on August 1 for alleged money laundering, reported Spanish news agency EFE.
The recent departure at least 11 journalists from Venezuelan broadcaster Globovisión has raised questions about the plurality of the media in the country. TV hosts Gladys Rodríguez, Román Lozinski, María Elena Lavaud, Roberto Giusti, María Isabel Párraga and Mary Montes, for instance, resigned a few days after the departure of well-known journalist Leopoldo Castillo, host of the TV show "Aló Ciudadano," news site America Economía reported.
The programming director of a radio station in Colombia was shot and killed on July 29 in the city of Buga, located in Valle de Cauca, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The closure of the magazine Vanguardia in Ecuador at the end of June not only represented the loss of one of the few critical voices in the country -- it was also a devastating blow for the morale of the profession.
Venezuela's attorney general is seeking to freeze the assets of the daily El Nacional's executive editor.