When the North American missionary Dorothy Mae Stang was killed in 2005, the Amazon region, its people and its conflicts, briefly dominated the front pages of newspapers across the country. Before the crime, the project Dorothy had been developing since the 1970s to defend the forest and communities of Anapu in the southwestern region of the Pará state, had never made it into mainstream media.
To create more awareness and knowledge in Brazil about the country's young Public Information Law -- which was approved two years ago on May 16, 2012 -- the Brazilian Investigative Journalism Association (Abraji) published this week on its site the guide in Portuguese “Public Information Law -- What you need to know,” with the financial support of UNESCO's International Program for the Development of Communication.
After almost three years of discussions and negotiations, a bill proposing a legal framework for internet operations in Brazil was approved by the two chambers of Congress and signed into law by President Dilma Rousseff on April 23 in São Paulo, during the opening of the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance - NET Mundial, Agência Brasil informed.
When journalists meet to talk about the future of the profession, the conversation often turns pessimistic: shrinking newsrooms and fewer spaces for in-depth reporting are some of the most common complaints. But there are some who see in this diagnosis of the crisis in traditional journalism a source of opportunities.
Brazilian journalist Geolino Lopes Xavier, known as Gel Lopes, was shot and killed last night in the city of Teixeira de Freitas, in the state of Bahia. He was a TV news show host and director of Portal N3, according to newspaper A Tarde.
The Military Police detained and attacked fourteen journalists that were reporting on a protest that took place on Saturday Feb. 22 in the center of São Paulo against the World Cup, which will take place this summer, according to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). At least five of the arrested journalists’ rights were violated even though they identified themselves as members of the press.
Journalists and citizens of Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries interested in investigative journalism can now count on a guidebook by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Titled “Story-based Inquiry: a Manual for Investigative Journalists,” the handbook was first launched in English in 2009 and this week was released in Spanish and Portuguese.
On the night of Feb. 13, journalist Pedro Palma, 47, was shot to death in Miguel Pereira, a town located in rural Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, says news organization G1. The military police say that two individuals on a motorcycle shot Palma three times in front of his home. He died immediately.
A day after the death of Bandeirantes TV’s cameraman Santiago Andrade on Feb. 10, Brazil’s Minister of Justice José Eduardo Cardozo met with the leaders of the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (Abert), the National Association of Newspapers (ANJ) and the National Association of Magazine Editors (Aner) to discuss ideas on how to improve the safety of journalists, according to Agência Brasil.
Santiago Ilídio Andrade, 49, a Brazilian cameraman from Bandeirantes TV was injured last week by an explosive device during a protest in Rio de Janeiro. He was confirmed brain-dead on Monday morning by the Municipal Department of health, according to the news outlet Uol.