Eighty-nine journalists from 11 countries in Latin America participated in the most recent environmental journalism training course organized by Colombia's Newsroom Council (CdR), an investigative journalism organization. The course was conducted on the distance education platform of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin.
Bolivia's presidential spokesman, Iván Canelas, accused the editor of the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color, Aldo Zuccolillo, and a Paraguayan senator of helping the ex-governor of Tarija, Mario Cossío Cortez, flee the country, reported the newspapers Los Tiempos and Opinión.
The newspaper Novo Jornal reports that its journalists were not allowed to leave the offices of businessman Augusto Caldar Targino, ex director of the Rio Grande do Norte’s consumer protection agency, while he threatened and berated them. (Listen to a recording of the incident in Portuguese here.)
Three managers of the Brazilian soccer team Palmeiras attacked news photographer Thiago Vieira, of the newspaper Agora (owned by media company Folha), because they felt "offended" by comments sent out via Twitter, reported Folha.com.
Bolivian prosecutor Marcelo Soza has ordered the media to reveal the source of a video in which a key witness in a terrorism investigation was allegedly paid to flee the country, Jornadanet reports.
Clarín and La Nación newspapers report that for five hours, 50 demonstrators obstructed the circulation of their Saturday editions by blocking trucks leaving the papers’ printing plants. The Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities (ADEPA) called this “one of the most serious attacks on press freedom in recent times in Argentina.”
Guatemalan journalists Jorge Toledo and Norman Rodas, of Channel 2 in the department, or state, of Quiché, had just finished covering a press conference of the Patriotic Party on Saturday, Jan. 15, when they were attacked by persons identified as members of the political party's communications team, reported Cerigua.
An investigation by internal affairs of Costa Rica's police force into the police beating of journalists at television channels 6 and 7 could last between two and six months and potentially could lead to officers being fired, reported Notimex and DPA.
The community station Friburgo FM is helping the citizens of Nova Friburgo find people missing in the Rio de Janeiro floods that have killed more than 600, Folha de S. Paulo reports.
After a bomb was thrown at the offices of Channel 9 in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, the Paraguayan Journalists’ Union (SPP) has said last week’s attack is diverting attention from “unjustified firings, union persecution, black lists,” and violations of worker rights at the station. The union urged the authorities to investigate the station’s management.