The National Chamber of the Radio and TV Industry (CIRT in Spanish), which represents the majority of the radio and TV companies in Mexico, announced that it would appeal to international bodies to denounce the current electoral law, which limits freedom of expression and press freedom, reported the newspaper El Universal.
The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) has sent a letter of complaint to the Baltimore Police Department expressing concern after police threatened to arrest a citizen videotaping police conducting an arrest, according to the Baltimore Sun and the NPPA Advocacy Committee. Ironically, the incident occurred less than 24 hours after police issued new rules instructing officers not to "prevent or prohibit" people from photographing or taping police actions, another article in the Sun said.
"This demonstrates that you can prosecute not only the clowns, but also the owner of the circus," said Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa as he celebrated the high court's ruling upholding the defamation sentence against the owners of the newspaper El Universo, the same newspaper reported Thursday, Feb. 16.
After police in Trinidad and Tobago raided the office of the Newsday newspaper and the home of reporter Andre Bagoo on Thursday, Feb. 9, the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) is calling for police to apologize and return Bagoo's hard drive and personal computers, reported the Trinidad Express.
"Long live free press!" said the Chilean president, Sebastian Piñera, Monday, Feb. 13, on his Twitter account to commemorate Chile's journalism day, according to the news agency Emol. "A salute to the Chilean journalists and press on their national day," added Piñera via Twitter.
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.
While trying to cover anti-mining protests in the province of Catamarca in Argentina, journalists were denied access to the area, showing a deterioration in freedom of expression, said the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish). FOPEA also said that several protesters and journalists were detained and harassed.
From a jail in the United States, former Colombian paramilitary commander Diego Fernando Murillo, alias "Don Berna," accused two ex-members of the Colombian national military of being responsible for the killing of journalist and comedian Jaime Garzón on Aug. 13, 1999, reported Caracol Radio.
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.
Just weeks after launching NewsRight, a company aimed at monitoring the unauthorized use of copyrighted material, on Tuesday, Feb. 14, the Associated Press (AP) sued Meltwater News for copyright infringement and “hot news” misappropriation, the AP said in a statement.
Two days after the killing of a Brazilian political journalist in the state of Río de Janeiro, Brazilian reporter Jorge Estevão received a death threat from an unknown person who pointed a gun at him early in the morning of Saturday, Feb. 11, in Cuiabá, the capital city of the state of Mato Grosso, reported HiperNotícias.
A Mexican congressman has proposed a law to regulate news coverage about the arrests of organized crime suspects, according to the official state news agency Notimex.