The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas recently published a new ebook in Spanish about the adverse conditions journalists in Central America face and how they resist these threats.
“Periodismo en Centroamérica: frente al retroceso democrático" (Journalism in Central America: Facing Democratic Backsliding) found that journalism in the region faces a dual economic and political crisis. While authoritarian regimes consolidate control over the media, the few independent outlets survive with increasingly scarce resources and are dependent on international cooperation.
The study, which looks at Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, says democratic backsliding in the region is not uniform. In Nicaragua, institutional repression has forced almost all independent journalists into exile; in El Salvador, government control is more personal; while in Honduras and Guatemala, violence against the press takes multiple forms, from judicial harassment to indirect censorship.
Furthermore, the research identifies structural patterns that exacerbate the precariousness of the profession: an advertising market concentrated in the hands of elites and governments, scarce and opaque local funding, and a growing dependence on international funds that often do not adapt to local realities. Women, community journalists and members of the LGBTIQ+ community who work in journalism face the harshest forms of this crisis, marked by discrimination, lack of resources and differentiated violence.
“We wanted to investigate and do a more detailed and surgical study of how independent journalism and journalist organizations—especially those belonging to minorities or covering issues related to gender, sexual diversity, local communities, or Indigenous peoples—are experiencing these processes of democratic regression,” Manuel Alejandro Guerrero, a professor and researcher at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico and one of the authors of the study, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
The ebook, available for free download, was published by the Knight Center in collaboration with Abierto, a communication and research studio.
The ebook combines documentary research with firsthand accounts.
“In each country, we interviewed ten people with different roles: journalists, editors, women journalists, Afro-descendant journalists or Indigenous journalists, depending on the national context,” Daniel Villatoro, Guatemalan journalist, director of Estudio Abierto and coordinator of the ebook, told LJR.
The team also included organizations that provide support to the press, in order to understand the challenges of exile and their support networks.
"We looked not only for iconic cases, but also for people who had a more representative experience, who had been involved in some kind of collective initiative, to understand beyond the personal experience," he added.
In addition to the interviews, the study conducted a contextual analysis of the media, political and legal environments in each country to identify common patterns and local specificities. The approach was qualitative and comparative, combining documentary review with field reports.
The study remarked on the financial fragility of independent media in Central America.
"We've noticed a lack of interest from external partners and an enormous dependence on international funding by organizations,” Guerrero said.
The researcher explained that this structural dependence has been exacerbated by cuts in international cooperation.
"Organizations that were previously more interested in defending press freedom, freedom of expression, etc., have seen funding cuts in both the United States and Europe. And this leaves organizations unprotected, many of which had plans that were almost entirely project-based," he said.
Villatoro said this is a dual crisis: a financial one and a democratic one.
“There are two parallel phenomena of precarization with different aspects. The first is commercial—large technology corporations are the ones that benefit from the digital game, not local capital. And alongside that is the democratic backlash,” he said.
The investigation highlights that, although the four countries studied share authoritarian tendencies, the forms of repression vary.
"While, on a general level, one can say 'the democratic regression in Nicaragua and El Salvador,' both are heavy-handed against journalism. But there are important variations: while in El Salvador the regime tends to be much more personality based, in Nicaragua it is much more institutional,” Guerrero said.
In Nicaragua, he said, "there are practically no journalists or independent media outlets criticizing the regime from Nicaragua. You have them in exile... in Costa Rica, in the United States, in Mexico."
In Honduras, the researchers added, "we can't speak of one form of violence, but rather of different forms of violence that vary even by region."
Guatemala presents "a super interesting process because there you have a president who wants to do things differently, but faces a super-conservative establishment embedded in many institutions and the military, which makes it difficult for initiatives promoting freedom of expression to work."
The study documents that precariousness and violence have differentiated impacts for women and journalists from the LGBTIQ+ community.
"We have very powerful evidence of the use of sexual violence as a threat, which gives a distinct layer of vulnerability to personal integrity," Villatoro said.
Guerrero added that in exile, "women journalists have a much harder time returning to their profession than men. When they've started taking care of their children or someone in their family, they have to quickly think about how to generate income. And they often fail to reintegrate as journalists."
The result, they agree, is a structural silencing: many abandon the profession because they cannot support themselves financially or emotionally, thus exacerbating the loss of critical voices.
Regarding journalists from the LGBTIQ+ community, the research shows that they face intersectional violence that combines homophobia, transphobia and political repression.
In countries like Nicaragua, institutional persecution is compounded by physical and digital harassment, while in Honduras and Guatemala, stereotypes and workplace exclusion limit their participation and leadership in newsrooms.
For LGBTIQ+ journalists, practicing journalism in Central America “becomes an act of resistance, where the fight for freedom of expression is intertwined with the fight for equality, non-discrimination, and the rights of LGBTIQ+ people,” says the ebook, which also warns that protection mechanisms “do not usually have an approach that considers the specificities of the violence these people suffer, leaving them in a situation of greater vulnerability.”
Despite the adverse outlook, the authors identify multiple forms of resistance among journalists working in Central America.
The ebook points out that existing support and protection mechanisms—both those promoted by international organizations and state mechanisms—are slow, ineffective and poorly adapted to the real needs of journalists at risk. Many emergency funds take weeks to process, and security measures or psychological support do not consider the specificities of exile or gender-based violence.
“These crises show us how support mechanisms were also somewhat outdated,” Villatoro said. “But there is an interesting organizational spirit.”
The researcher highlighted the work of associations such as APES in El Salvador and No nos callarán (We will not be silenced) in Guatemala, which have developed mechanisms for solidarity, emotional support and legal defense.
"We can't pretend that all journalists will share the same sentiment, but there is plenty of room for creativity and for finding solutions," he said.
Guerrero added that connecting with communities can be a protection strategy.
“Journalism does have a huge future when it connects with the needs of communities. Communities make them visible, and by making them visible, violence against journalists becomes a little more difficult,” he said.
Both authors agreed that international cooperation must be better adapted to local realities. The ebook warns that many assistance programs reproduce external models that do not always respond to the urgent needs of each country: in some contexts, legal defenses and anti-criminalization strategies are required, while in others, temporary shelters or emotional support are a priority.
“Many people want to train journalists, but they don't want to provide the support to apply what they've learned. There are carefully thought-out dynamics without asking ourselves what's useful and what works for this sector,” Villatoro said.
He added that the ebook also seeks to strengthen regional collaboration.
“Central America has found solutions as a region,” he said. “You learn from what another country did, from how it faced attacks, and that can empower journalism and help it resist.”
