The government offensive against the channel Globovisión isn't stopping. The Venezuelan president warned he could expropriate the television station's shares, increasing pressure against the last opposition channel in the country, reported Reuters.
Violence against journalists in Honduras and Mexico and government actions against the media in Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, and Colombia were discussed this week at a U.S. House panel on press freedom in the Americas, The Dallas Morning News and AFP report.
International broadcasters are looking into muting or filtering the blaring ambient noise of the vuvuzela at the World Cup, but Brazilians have an additional complaint: the national team’s play-by-play announcer Galvão Bueno. His non-stop talking during the opening ceremony led to millions of posts on Twitter of “Cala boca, Galvão” (Shut up, Galvão), making it the site's top trending topic for the last five days.
The Bloomberg financial news and information company will deliver news in Portuguese as part of its real-time service for investors, the company announced (via Business Wire).
The two papers, Clarín and La Nación, owner of 71.5 percent of the shares of Papel Prensa, have published a letter in which they urge the government to sell its shares so the newsprint company can operate “without political interference."
Luís Arturo Mondragón, news director for a local cable news channel, died after leaving work when two people shot him from the window of their vehicle in El Paraíso, east of the capital, El Heraldo reports.
Guillermo Zuloaga, the fugitive owner of Venezuela's 24-hour news channel Globovisión, has accused President Hugo Chávez of ordering his arrest to silence his criticism of the government, Reuters reports.
Thirteen journalists and photographers from Michoacán state in southwestern Mexico were abducted for three hours during a government media tour to promote tourism in the region, the Associated Press reports.
"I've brought my rifle, and I’m going to shoot you,” Mayor Percy Fernández of Santa Cruz warned a TV reporter and a cameraman who had insisted on questioning him about his plan to reorganize the city’s public markets, Los Tiempos and El Mundo report.
Karol Cabrera, a controversial TV and radio host who defended the coup that forced out President Manuel Zelaya last June, won asylum for herself and her two children in Canada, El Tiempo and La Prensa report. (See this Miami Herald article in English.)
World Cup 2010, expected to be the most-watched TV event in history, got under way Friday (June 11) in South Africa, with reporters cursing the spotty Internet access at the International Broadcast Centre.
Two local police officers and a third accomplice were indicted for last month's kidnapping and torture of journalist Gilvan Luiz Pereira, editor and owner of Jornal Sem Nome (Newspaper Without a Name), in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, the Diário do Nordeste newspaper reports.