In Brazil, independent media have been working to make public transparency the rule, both in government and in newsrooms. Journalists from Fiquem Sabendo and Agência Pública give tips on how to conduct investigations using the Access to Information Law (LAI).
Proyecto Desclasificados, in Argentina, created a public and easily accessible database of declassified U.S. government documents related to Argentina, while Archivero, in Mexico, works against the authorities' refusal to allow access to documents classified as "state secrets" or "national security."
During the LATAM Festival of Digital Media and Journalism, journalists from Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela shared how they go around the opacity and hostility of their governments. They agreed that the lack of transparency and access to information can cost human lives.
Two decisions of the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled in favor of journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos' requests for information from the Catholic Church related to pederasty cases. Although his fight has set a positive precedent for freedom of expression, it has also meant judicial and personal exhaustion for him.
While Mexican news organizations initially covered in detail the evacuation of Mexican nationals from Ukraine, as the war continued, Mexican audiences are divided as to how much attention news outlets should pay to a conflict far away from home, when so many people are routinely victims of deadly violence in their own country.
The Contratopedia Caribe, a specialized digital platform that follows the trail of public contracting in the Colombian Caribbean, held training sessions for students to introduce them to tools to access the Law of Access to Information based on the Constitution of Colombia. This project was motivated by the great vulnerabilities that exist in the right of access to public information in Colombia that affect journalism.
Atlas da Notícia identified a 9.5% reduction in the number of municipalities considered news deserts in Brazil. News deserts are municipalities that do not have local journalistic information and today these number 5 out of 10 Brazilian municipalities.
Panelists at the webinar "Variants, vaccines and medications: What journalists need to know to improve COVID-19 coverage" discussed some key points that journalists covering the coronavirus need to address to better tell their stories.
At least six writs of security regarding Jair Bolsonaro's blocking of Brazilian journalists and citizens on his social media are awaiting judgment in the Federal Supreme Court (STF, by its Portuguese acronym), according to an investigation by LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). There is no prediction of when the 2019 and 2021 legal actions will be judged.
Blocking of journalists occurs systematically in El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela and Brazil. In most Latin American countries there is no law that regulates this situation, which threatens freedom of expression and journalistic work. In Mexico and Chile, officials are prohibited from blocking accounts, but sometimes regulations are not followed.
Ten years after the enactment of the Access to Information Law, an analysis by the organization Transparência Brasil says the quality of the federal government’s response to requests for information made between 2019 and 2021 has gotten worse.
Created on the 10th anniversary of the enactment of Brazil’s Access to Information Act, WikiLAI brings together explanatory content as well as cases of how journalists have used the law that transformed access to public information in the country.