After the United States criticized the state of freedom of expression in Ecuador, President Rafael Correa fired back, saying it was an “embarrassment” that U.S. President Barack Obama would “defend informants,” according to the news agency AFP.
The former president of the Brazilian city council of Curitiba (Paraná), João Carlos Derosso, threw a humor journalist's microphone out the window of a four-story building on Tuesday, May 8, reported the newspaper Gazeta do Povo. Journalist Maurício Meirelles is from the TV program Custe o que Custar on the CQC station.
The Deutsche Welle international competition for blogs, The BOBs, awarded the Brazilian Catraca Livre as the best blog in Portuguese this year. Catraca Livre, which means "Open Turnstile," is famous for publishing about Sao Paulo's free social and cultural events.
A new report from the Office of Journalist Human Rights of the National Journalists Association of Peru (ANP in Spanish) shows 49 attacks against journalists recorded in Peru during the first months of 2012. Most assaults were done by public officials (17), followed by civilians (16), non-identified attackers (11), news outlet owners/managers (4), and police/military (1). Among the assaulted journalists, 12 of them were women, according to the report.
The U.S. government called on Ecuador to guarantee freedom of expression “and to make sure journalists can work without fear of threats or punishments," reported the news agency EFE. The U.S. government also criticized the case of Ecuadorian journalist Cesar Ricaurte, director of the Ecuadorian NGO Fundamedios, who has received death threats for his criticisms against the government, added EFE.
The Brazilian newspaper O Globo's recently launched iPad app "O Globo a Mais" is an afternoon publication that includes the highlights of the newspaper's printed version plus exclusive digital material. Pedro Doria, O Globo's editor for online, explained in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas the different challenges of transitioning from paper to tablet.
On Monday, April 30, during unrest at the La Planta prison, in Caracas, Venezuela, the country's minister of prison services, Iris Varela, told the state-run TV channel Venezuelana Televisión (VTV) that the private TV broadcaster Globovisión was spreading "malicious information" and an order was issued to seize the station's equipment and interrupt the channel's transmission, reported the National Association of Journalists (CNP in Spanish).
Two Mexican journalists were found dead in Veracruz on the morning of Thursday, May 3, only days after the killing of journalist Regina Martínez, reporter for Veracruz’s Proceso news-magazine, according to the Los Angeles Times. The finding of the two dead journalists coincides with World Press Freedom Day.
An Argentine journalist was brutally beaten to death by unknown men that entered his house in Neuquén, reported the radio station Cadena 3. The journalist was found dead on Sunday, April 29.
After the killing of Brazilian journalist Décio Sá, of the newspaper O Estado do Maranhão, on April 23, other local reporters and editors said that they also receive frequent threats, according to Último Segundo.