News that a 21-year-old photography intern was shot to death Thursday in Ciudad Juárez, and that his 18-year-old colleague was wounded, increased the sense of urgency for members of 40 journalist training and safety organizations who gathered in Austin, Texas, Friday and Saturday (Sept. 17–18) for the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas. The annual gathering focuses this year on the coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Just days before the Venezuelan parliamentary elections, representatives from the opposition Democratic Unity Coalition filed a complaint with the National Electoral Board (CNE) alleging that President Hugo Chavez was abusing the media by using them to campaign for candidates supportive of Chavez's party, reported El Universal.
During a presentation Friday, Sept. 17, to more than 40 public policy, Latin American studies, government and sociology students at the University of Texas at Austin, Salvadoran journalists Oscar Martinez and Carlos Dada of ElFaro.net explained how the multi-media news website put together a project looking at the dangerous path of undocumented Central American migrants through Mexico.
A photographer from the newspaper El Diario de Juárez was shot to death Thursday, Sept. 16, in a mall parking lot in Ciudad Juarez, ground zero for the drug trafficking violence in Mexico and just along the border with the United States, according to CNN. Another photographer, an intern at the newspaper, was seriously injured in the shoooting, according to the Associated Press.
After media and journalism groups strongly criticized the anti-racism bill that passed the Chamber of Deputies last week, the Senate has invited journalists to discuss the issue today (Sept. 16), Los Tiempos reports.
The federal prosecutor’s office has accused TV Globo and the Group of 13 soccer consortium of engaging in unfair trade practices in negotiating broadcasting contracts for the Campeonato Brasileiro, the country’s top soccer division.
Military police accompanied by a court official confiscated television sets, cameras, furniture, and even the transmitters of the television channell TV Descalvados, affiliate of the SBT network in the town of Cáceres, in the western state of Mato Grosso, reported Midia News. The seizure, which forced the channel off the air, was court-ordered to pay for "moral damages" inflicted on the city's first lady, Gisele Fontes, according tol Diário de Cuiabá.
Luis Galdámez, a reporter for Radio Globo and TV Globo, was attacked by three shooters in front of his house in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, La Tribuna reports. The journalist used his own gun to fight off the attackers.
After being arrested and threatened for reporting on a pedophile ring, Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho has been named the recipient of the PEN International Writer of Courage Prize, according to the Associated Press (AP). She will be honored at an awards presentation in London on Oct. 20.
Journalists and representatives from journalism organizations from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are coming together for two days of discussion on coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime at the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, Sept. 17-18, 2010, in Austin, Texas.
The latest e-book from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas now is available to download for free. The book, Journalism in Times of Threats, Censorship and Violence, is a report from the seminar “Cross-border Coverage of U.S.–Mexico Drug Trafficking” held March 26-27, 2010, at the University of Texas at Austin.
Prosecutors in the western city of Mendoza opened a case against Víctor Fayad, the city’s mayor, for serious threats he allegedly made to the news director of MDZ Online via text messages last April, Perfil and Los Andes report.