The reduction or suspension of print editions, salary cuts and mass layoffs. The coronavirus pandemic has hit the financial health of Latin American media companies at a time when journalistic work is essential for society.
To help arm journalists with knowledge and tools to cover the virus and the health, social and financial crises it is causing, the Knight Center is offering the free online course “Journalism in a pandemic: Covering COVID-19 now and in the future.”
A total 3,877 students from 147 countries and territories registered for the instructor-led version of the Knight Center course, “Investigative Reporting in the Digital Age,” which ran from Feb. 3 to March 1, 2020.
Since the Salvadoran government imposed mandatory home quarantine on March 21 due to the new coronavirus pandemic, a number of executive restrictions have affected access to information and freedom of expression.
Latin America has seen an overall decline in respect for press freedom, according to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF, for its acronym in French).
Mexican authorities located a cephalic body part – meaning related to the head – of a journalist who went missing from the state of Guerrero on April 2.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned this week that governments are using the new coronavirus pandemic to publish measures that threaten freedom of expression. The two organizations cited the case of Bolivia, and CPJ also highlighted the situation in Puerto Rico.
UNESCO is donating a total of US $500,000 to nonprofit organizations, including media associations and/or journalists, with projects that improve legal protections for journalists, as well as those that support investigative journalism aimed at fighting impunity.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA, for its Spanish acronym) warned this week that the ban on questions from journalists during government announcements about the coronavirus contributes to disinformation in the country.
The Forum on the Right of Access to Public Information changed its composition and resumed activities to face threats against public transparency and to monitor compliance with the Access to Information Law (LAI, for its acronym in Portuguese) in Brazil.
GK is developing the collaborative virtual memorial “Voces para la Memoria” (Voices for Memory), so that Ecuadorians can say goodbye to their loved ones who died during the health emergency caused by COVID-19, according to Ponce.
Journalist Víctor Fernando Álvarez Chávez, 50, has been missing from the Mexican state of Guerrero since April 2.