Ending illegal surveillance of journalists and activists was one of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's promises after he became president of Mexico in 2018. Four years later, new evidence of spying on journalists is emerging, while journalists and NGOs believe that the president has little to show for his promises.
Voces del Sur reports that 170 journalists from the region were forced into exile in 2020 and 2021 to escape arbitrary imprisonment or even assassination attempts. To understand this worrying exodus, GIJN spoke with exiled members of the press from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, and Colombia, who shared how they had been pushed into exile, and gave tips for other watchdog journalists who face similar threats.
Edilma Prada, founder of Agenda Propia, and Juan Manuel Jiménez Ocaña, expert in interculturalism and Indigenous education, share recommendations to portray with dignity the knowledge, values and ways of life of Indigenous peoples.
Sixteen journalists from Brazil’s public communication company (EBC, by its Portuguese acronym) handed in written statements describing humiliating situations taking place in the company on a daily basis, since the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president. Among them are workplace harassment, censorship, a climate of fear due to persecution at work, devaluation, and a lack of dialogue.
Since its inception, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) has remained faithful to its founding principles: professional training, defense of freedom of expression, and the right to access public information. Abraji has not only become an organization of professional journalists with an important voice in the Brazilian media scene, but also a standard for associations in other countries.
To make women and LGBTQ+ people more present in coverage and in positions of power in the media, journalists need to have 'uncomfortable conversations' with colleagues, managers and themselves, Geo González (Mexico), Carolina Vila-Nova (Brazil), Daniel Villatoro (Guatemala), and Esteban Hernández (Colombia) said.
In Brazil, where 43.2% of the population identifies as white and 55.7% as Black, newsrooms are composed of 77% white employees. Research shows that a lack of diversity affects news production and journalists themselves.
Three months into his presidency, the controversial, embattled Rodrigo Chaves has given Costa Ricans an unsparing earful of his feelings toward the press. In that respect, even the leader of the ‘Switzerland of Central America’ is no exception to the Central American rule. At the same time, it’s ironic that Costa Rica remains a haven for journalists exiled from Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua.
The Paraguayan Union of Journalists and press collectives are defending the rights of the country's women journalists and female media workers to report harassment in the newsroom and not be fired as a result, which has been the case recently.
In FLIP's analysis, the government of Iván Duque, which ends on August 7, maintained a strategy of friend-or-foe with the press. With those considered critical, distrust and secrecy prevailed. In addition, he used human and economic resources to prioritize institutional communication and impose his narrative. This contributed to an atmosphere of polarization and built a wall that affected access to information.