In February, an organization which defends freedom of expression, Article 19, launched the Community Communication Observatory, an online platform which aims to increase the visibility of bureaucratic difficulties and legislative problems facing community media outlets in Brazil.
As presidential elections in Venezuela approach, President Hugo Chavez on Saturday, March 24, criticized the alleged assaults on journalists of the state-run National System of Public Media committed by supporters of the opposition, according to the website for the Venezuelan National Assembly.
Lúcio Flávio Pinto, four-time winner of Brazil's most important journalism award, the Esso, said he would no longer appeal the libel lawsuit in which he was sentenced to pay roughly $4,600 in moral damages for articles accusing the owner of a company of landgrabbing in Pará, a region in northern Brazil, according to the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.
On Friday, Feb. 17, a Venezuelan court began hearing the appeal of Globovisión to overturn a $2.1 million fine, according to the newspaper El Diario. The Globovisión television news agency has been critical of Hugo Chavez's government, and the fine was levied against the station in October of 2011 for its reporting.
Venezuelan sports journalist Walter Obregón denounced on Twitter that he was threatened by Zamora Football Club fans on Friday, Feb. 15, in the Venezuelan state of Barinas, reported the NGO Espacio Público.
After speaking with the victim's friends and relatives, investigators into the death of Brazilian journalist Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues have found stronger evidence that the reporter was killed because of his journalistic activities, explained the news website Midiamax. Paraguayan reporter Cándido Figueiredo said he was warned by the Brazilian police of a plan to kill the journalist, known as Paulo Rocaro, because of his coverage of drug trafficking on the border between the two nations.
The Brazilian news website Congresso em Foco was acquitted of defamation in the first of one of many lawsuits brought against the site, which published a series of reports on the existence of salaries higher than the constitutional ceiling for politicians, authorities and civil servants in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, reported the Forum for the Right to Access Public Information.
In an article titled "Will the land grabbers win?" and published Saturday, Feb. 11, the editor of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Pessoal, Lúcio Flávio Pinto, reported that the Supreme Court denied his appeal to a lawsuit filed by one of country´s largest construction companies and ordered the journalist to pay roughly $4,600 in moral damages, according to the website Socioambiental.
After accusations of skewed coverage of the security forces strike in Río de Janeiro favoring the government, on Sunday, Feb. 12, a news team from TV Globo was harassed and thrown out of a protest of firefighters and military police in the neighborhood of Copacabana, reported the news portal Terra and newspaper Jornal do Brasil.
National and international journalism associations denounced the attack that killed Brazilian journalist Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues, known as Paulo Rocaro, in the early hours Monday, Feb. 13, in Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, on the border with Paraguay. Rocaro was editor in chief of the newspaper Jornal da Praça and of the news site Merco Sul News, where he frequently wrote about politics and drug trafficking.