Stories about gangs and criminal organizations, border areas with the ambiguity of their limits and jurisdictions, marginal urban towns or a simple central plaza of a city taken over by drug cartels are some of the Latin American topics and scenarios where journalists of the region can find their best reports or a life or death situation.
Peruvian journalist Gustavo Gorriti, in an interview with LatAm Journalism Review (LJR), analyzes the relationship between the current Peruvian president Pedro Castillo and the traditional press or "concentrated press" and the independent press, from his turbulent career as a presidential candidate to his shaky first months of government.
The journalists who were victims of the wave of violence at the beginning of 2022 have common denominators such as being independent or working on their own native digital projects on local issues of politics, insecurity and corruption.
The pandemic has transformed the routines and professional practices of women journalists in Colombia and Venezuela, imposing more daily working hours and intensifying the use of information and communication technologies, but without a corresponding salary increase, according to research.
Headline news startup intends to transfer up to 70% of its total revenue — through subscriptions and content licensing — to journalists and independent organizations present on the platform.
After López Obrador revealed what journalist Carlos Loret de Mola allegedly earns in a year, more than 64 thousand people joined a Twitter Space in which the actions of the president and the growing violence against the press in Mexico were condemned. To date, more than 1.5 million people have listened to the audio recording.
Latin American journalism increasingly merges data and art so stories will have a greater impact and reach different audiences. However, there is still a need for more journalists to delve into the visual aspect of their work and for more institutions to support artistic projects.
Whether in Mexico or Ecuador, as in Colombia, Honduras or Nicaragua, the coverage of violence has posed new challenges for journalists, because the traditional concept of armed conflict is being challenged in the region. The diversity of armed groups also means broadening the definition of the term. It is not just regular security forces, such as armies or police, and paramilitary groups such as guerrillas, but it can also involve drug traffickers, gang members or private security forces.
The Venezuelan courts handed over the headquarters of the independent traditional newspaper El Nacional to congressman and former president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, as part of a multi-million dollar civil compensation defamation lawsuit filed against the newspaper and its directors. “It is the newspaper's most important asset,” Miguel Henrique Otero, director of El Nacional, told LJR.
Barely three weeks after the disclosure that dozens of journalists in El Salvador were the target of digital espionage, the country's Legislative Assembly approved new legislation that creates the legal figure of a "digital secret agent" and allows police to access electronic devices and collect data to be used as proof in criminal proceedings. Opponents of the measure claim that this is about legalizing digital spying on citizens and that it can be used to harass journalists critical of the government.
So far in February, Mexico has recorded an attempted assassination of a journalist, two beaten photojournalists and the murder of the son of a well-known journalist from Tijuana, in addition to verbal attacks and disqualifications to members of the press from the Presidency.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas is offering the course “How to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Latin American journalism.”