Attacks with stones, sticks, boiling liquids, threats, and hindrance to access information are some of the aggressions the press has experienced so far while covering the protests that began on June 13 in Ecuador.
The Chapultepec Index of Freedom of Expression and Press shows the evolution of the indicators of freedom in the practice of journalism between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. The Executive Branch appears to be most influential in unfavorable situations for the press in the Americas.
The murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous affairs expert Bruno Pereira have drawn national and international attention to the Amazon region where the borders between Brazil, Peru, and Colombia meet. On the Brazilian side, the absence of the State and a strong presence of organized crime inhibit local journalists from reporting on illegal activities.
Maps are a powerful visual tool for journalists to analyze geographical data, identify patterns, and make sense of an overwhelming amount of data. We’ll explore their practical application in our new course, “Hands-on Mapping for Journalists: How to use geographical data to improve your stories” which runs for four weeks from July 7 to Aug. 11, 2022. Registration is open now!
The Amazon must be covered with a lot of preparation, including local voices, from diverse approaches and without falling into the trap of misinformation, according to participants of the First Amazon Summit on Journalism and Climate Change 2022, held June 9-11 in Ecuador.
Across Latin America, governments have attempted different models to investigate and prosecute attacks against journalists. It is evident that there is no unified model for creating an office to investigate and prosecute crimes against journalists. Some countries have special prosecutors, while other countries have investigative units. Moreover, the results of their efforts are often difficult to track, according to experts.
The Argentine organization Chequeado, with the support of Google News Initiative, invited news organizations Verificado (from Mexico), Colombia Check (from Colombia), Convoca and Ojo Público (both from Peru) to form a 'Latin American network of fact-checking trainers' and thus make up for the lack of fact-checking-oriented courses in university journalism curricula in Latin America.
Brazil is where a growing aversion to the news is worst, as 54% of Brazilians avoid the news, well above the world average of 38%. In Argentina, 46% now say they avoid news content. The other countries in the region surveyed were Chile (38%), Colombia (38%), Mexico (37%), and Peru (37%).
Nearly 5,500 students from 59 countries seized the opportunity to learn how to start and sustain their own journalism ventures in a free online course from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Ajor and SembraMedia.
The MasterLAB in Investigative Editing 2022 will provide training to nearly 20 journalists, mainly from Mexico, on tools and skills to conceive, organize, narrate, and produce investigative journalism, while monitoring the safety of their staff.
Brazilian journalist Rubens Valente participated in the "5 questions” section of the LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). In the interview, he talks about the conviction that forces him to pay USD 70,000 to a justice of the Supreme Court. "Its effect was that it provoked the worst censorship of all: self-censorship”, Valente said.
The Brazilian digital news outlets AzMina and Núcleo have created the Amplifica project, a tool to follow their readers’ debates on Twitter and to promote conversations between the public and the news outlets on the social network. The idea is that, by getting to know their public better and knowing what their interests are, the media can get closer to their readers and maximize the impact of the journalism they produce.