The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has created a map depicting media censorship in Brazil leading up to the Oct. 3 elections for president, governors, and federal and state senators and representatives.
The map identifies a series of judicial decisions, legislation, and other governmental actions that impeded journalists' election coverage. The censorship impacted various media, as newspapers, television and radio stations, news websites and blogs were fined, ordered to remove content, prohibited from publishing certain information, and sued or harassed by candidates and political parties. In one case editions of a newspaper were even seized.
Several court decisions confused journalistic information with election campaigning, while others restricted the circulation of public information in an attempt to protect the honor or image of candidates. These restrictions on freedom of expression come at a time when the right to information is crucial for allowing voters to choose their governmental representatives in an informed manner.
The project by Knight Center blogger Maíra Magro was inspired by a similar map prepared by Brazilian journalist Marcelo Soares during elections in 2008. The map will be updated as new cases occur.
For more information on the mapping project, see this story from the Knight Center.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
