Unidentified gunmen fired on a Venezuelan state-run television station, Vive TV, in the country's western state of Zulia on Sunday, July 31. leaving two people injured, reported El Universal.
Dominican reporter José Agustín Silvestre for Cana TV was kidnapped and killed Tuesday, Aug. 2, in the city of La Romana, Dominican Republic, local press reported. His body was found near a pond with two gunshot wounds, according to El Día.
Hardly seven months have gone by and 2011 is already the most "tragic year in the last two decades for the Latin American press."
The budget for the city of Januária, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, will soon have a new watchdog: the citizens themselves.
Peruvian newspaper Correo criticized Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's visit to Peru at the invitation of the Andean nation's new president, Ollanta Humala, to attend the Ceremony of the Assumption.
The junior soccer team Atlético Tubarão, located in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, attacked journalist Eduardo Ventura who was covering a game for Rádio Santa Catarina and channel Unisul TV, reported Diário Sul.
In a São Paulo court, six witnesses testified in a civil case of the death of journalist Luiz Eduardo da Rocha Merlino, who was tortured and killed 40 years ago during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), according to Agência Brasil.
The ex-director of the Liberal political party in Colombia, Francisco Ferney Tapasco González, is going to be tried in the killing of the assistant editor of the newspaper La Patria, Orlando Sierra.
On Thursday, July 28 the Bolivian Senate approved the controversial Telecommunications, Information Technology and Communication Law. The law gives the state majority control of electronic media, according to local press.
Brazil’s Senate president, José Sarney, blocked an attempt to censure Senator Robert Requião, who forcefully took a journalists tape recorder, erased what was on it, and threatened to hit the media worker during an April interview, G1 reports.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent an open letter to Ollanta Humala, Peru’s new president, asking him to follow through on his campaign promise to decriminalize media offenses and end existing legal cases against journalists, EFE reports.
As tempers simmered over the sentencing of newspaper employees for defaming Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, one citizen decided to file a similar lawsuit. But this time it was against President Correa for comments the head of state made about him, Hoy reports. Executives and a columnist of El Universo were sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $40 million in damages to the president.