The Honduran government told the U.N. that it would implement measures to improve the state of free expression and protect press workers from the wave of violence that has affected the country, El Heraldo reports.
Candidates for Peru’s April 10 election have signed an agreement to guarantee access to public information, promote administrative transparency, and protect freedom of information if they are elected, the RPP radio network reports.
Former President Jimmy Carter, met in Havana Wednesday, March 30, with independent bloggers and other Cuban dissidents during the third and final day of his visit to the island in an effort to help to improve decades of tense relations between the United States and Cuba, the BBC and Reuters report.
The killing of journalist Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, editor general of Zeta weekly, was allegedly ordered by Javier Arellano Félix, then leader of the Tijuana Cartel, the gang that controls the drug trade between the Mexican border city of the same name and the United States, the Committee Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports.
In recognition of the World Day against Cyber-Censorship, held March 12, the organization Reporters Without Borders gave out its annual award for online media and released a new list of countries named as "Internet enemies," including Cuba, reported the Associated Press and Telegraf.
Brazilian authorities have proposed a National Plan for Community Radio Concessions, with the aim of expanding community radio stations and facilitating the licensing process, according to the Communications Ministry.
A cameraman for Brazil's TV Globo, William Santos, was tackled by three police officers in the streets of São Paulo on March 11. His video tape with material for SPTV news about police corruption disappeared after the scuffle, during which his camera was confiscated.
Amidst the “information blackout” generated by drug trafficking violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, social network sites have transformed into a fundamental information source for citizens, but they cannot replace Mexican journalism, said veteran Mexican journalist Jacinto Rodríguez, who spoke recently at the University of Texas at Austin about journalism and violence.
The director of the community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande, who also is a peasant leader in the island of Zacate in the south of Honduras, was shot in the leg and hospitalized March 13, reported the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica.
Mario Caro, a reporter for Radio Kollasuyo, told Bolivia’s National Press Association (ANP) that the Potosí city prosecutor has charged him for allegedly libeling local authorities in his stories, ANP reports via IFEX.
After La Prensa newspaper unilaterally decided to stop publishing photos of dead bodies to avoid sensationalizing the increase in violence in the country, the Honduras Journalists’ Guild (CPH) and the government are now working towards an agreement that would remove violent photos from newspaper covers, La Tribuna reports.
A group of civil society organizations is demanding greater safety and protection for journalists and human rights activists in Mexico, especially in the eastern and northern regions of the country where the most aggression occurs, reported the newspaper La Jornada.