Despite low percentages of women in news reporting and presenting, Latin America has seen the most significant progress for gender equality in that field compared to other countries, according to a study of representation of women in the media around the world.
The decision of the National Assembly of Ecuador to adopt amendments to the constitution on Dec. 3 caused alarm for freedom of expression organizations in that country.
Covering parliamentary elections occuring on Dec. 6 in Venezuela has become a major challenge for national and international journalists.
This year, the most prestigious award of the Brazilian press, ExxonMobil Award of Journalism (formerly known as Esso Award, or Prêmio Esso), went to a story that used a public online database as its main source. On the night of Nov. 12, two members of the Estadão Dados team, José Roberto de Toledo and Rodrigo Burgarelli, along with reporter Paulo Saldaña, won the award in the main category for “Farra no Fiés” (Farra in Fiés).
“Since the government of Felipe Calderón declared ‘war’ against organized crime, the Mexican media have covered disappearances and deaths, but we forgot to narrate the day after.” So explains the introduction of the new Mexican digital portal Learning to Live with the Narco, or drug trafficker.
A number of Mexican journalists, newspapers and media outlets recently sent a formal declaration to the government of Veracruz denouncing alleged police violence against journalists while they were covering teacher protests on Nov. 21 and 22.
Venezuelan media and transparency advocates have launched platforms to ensure that voters in the Dec. 6 parliamentary elections have an outlet to report irregularities in the electoral process.
As the end of the year nears, two more journalists were killed in Brazil and Colombia in the past week.
At a conference in Bogotá, Colombia, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Edison Lanza, talked with representatives of various international organizations concerned with media concentration in the Americas.
“It always reminds us that it is not sleeping,” said María Martin, a veteran radio journalist honored on Nov. 19 at the University of Texas at Austin for her forty years in public radio and many years of work in Latin America to train journalists.
GlobalGirl Media (GGM), a U.S.-based organization dedicated to the empowerment of young women through the media, is fundraising for a new initiative in São Paulo, Brazil. The program focuses on the links between sexuality and technology and aims to provide girls with a channel for voicing their opinions through journalism and other media.
From Nov. 18 to 19, international experts are meeting in Bogota, Colombia to discuss the situation of the media, legislation, ownership concentration and/or control and the impact on freedom of expression and the exercise of journalism.