Most Bolivian newspapers published the same first page Thursday (Oct. 7)—a blank page with one headline: “There is no democracy without freedom of expression.” The unprecedented protest follows this week’s decision by President Evo Morales to maintain controversial articles in the proposed Antiracism Law.
Despite a growing need for transparency and access to information in the public sector, Brazil remains one of the few Latin American countries that still has not approved a freedom of information (FOI) law. The relatively weak news media coverage of a freedom of information law in Brazil is one of the key factors that can explain why proposals have been floating around Congress since 2003 without finding closure and, consequently, why citizens still have no right to access information. While an information access bill was
Confronted with the outcry from journalists and the media over the unprecedented banning of two journalists condemned of defamation from working for one year, the president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, said he is committed to freedom of expression and promised to pardon both journalists, reported EFE and Crítica.
Luz del Carmen Sosa Carrizosa and Sandra Rodríguez of the newspaper Diario de Juárez won the "Reporteros del Mundo" prize awarded by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in recognition of their “extraordinary valor” in covering drug trafficking and the killing of women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Giant Mexican media company Televisa is making in-roads in the U.S. television market, investing $1.2 billion in debt-ridden Univision Communications Inc., according to Bloomberg. The initial investment gives Televisa a 5 percent stake in Univision, growing to as much as 40 percent eventually.
The incumbent Workers’ Party was expected by many to win last Sunday’s election (Oct. 3) in the first round. A runoff is scheduled for Oct. 31, and media around the world are asking, what might happen next?
The Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a ban on a part of the media law that requires conglomerates such as the Clarín Group to sell off some of their assets within a year, Bloomberg News reports.
Former President Álvaro Uribe has assumed “legal and political responsibility” for actions taken by his former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno, one of nine former senior officials sanctioned for the espionage scandal involving wiretaps and illegal surveillance of judges, opponents, and journalists, Colombia Reports, Associated Press, and El Espectador report.
A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge ruled that a Puerto Rican newspaper, El Vocero, illegally fired 107 employees and closed its circulation department, according to Editor & Publisher.
A federal appeals court has overturned the acquittal of Sabrina Bacal and Justino González in separate suits for libel and injury. They were both sentenced to 12 months in prison and banned from practicing journalism for a year Hora Cero reports.
Laureano Márquez will be one of the journalists to receive an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) in November for having “risked their freedom and security to report the truth as they see it in their countries.”
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN–IFRA) has urged President Cristina Fernández to respect international standards of freedom of expression and to cease “the attacks by her government against independent media,” La Gaceta de Tucumán reports. See the association's statement in English.