A Brazilian reporter was arrested and booked for contempt of authority on Tuesday, Feb. 28, while gathering information about an airplane accident in the Amazonian city of Manaus, according to the news site Portal Amazônia.
In February, an organization which defends freedom of expression, Article 19, launched the Community Communication Observatory, an online platform which aims to increase the visibility of bureaucratic difficulties and legislative problems facing community media outlets in Brazil.
WikiLeaks' latest information release -- The Global Intelligence Files -- has yet to produce any major stories, but what is noteworthy are the media outlets with which the whistleblower site partnered this time around. WikiLeaks cites 25 media collaborators, none of which were among the site's original partner publications -- which condemned WikiLeak's uncensored release of its entire cache of secret diplomatic cables in September 2011 -- calling attention to the wedge driven between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and mainstream media outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian.
Guest post by Lise Olsen, Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) board member from 2007-2011, and director of IRE-Mexico from 1996-1998. Twenty leading journalists gathered in Mexico City on Friday, Feb. 18, to exchange information and discuss ways that Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) can continue to help reporters who, under pressure and often at great personal risk, continue to do investigative reporting on U.S.-Mexico border topics such as children victimized by cartel violence, wasteful government spending, political corruption, cartel operations, as well as the huge economic and social costs of our tw
The Dominican Journalism Guild (CDP in Spanish) proposed mandatory membership for journalists and penalizing journalists without university degrees with two years of prison and a fine of roughly $25,700, reported the newspapers El Nuevo Diario and Diario Libre.
A coalition of 29 news outlets and organizations has filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals asking the court to uphold a lower-court's decision blocking prosecutors from forcing New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources, reported Politico. The amicus brief, filed on behalf of the news groups on Tuesday, Feb. 21, argues that "the confidentiality of journalists’ communications with their sources has been vital to ensuring that the press effectively performs its constitutionally protected role of disseminating information to the public."
Congressional legislators in Guatemala passed a measure preventing press access to closed door sessions, reported the newspaper elPeriódico.
While trying to cover anti-mining protests in the province of Catamarca in Argentina, journalists were denied access to the area, showing a deterioration in freedom of expression, said the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish). FOPEA also said that several protesters and journalists were detained and harassed.
A Mexican congressman has proposed a law to regulate news coverage about the arrests of organized crime suspects, according to the official state news agency Notimex.
Several freedom of information groups were outraged at a proposed reform to Guatemala's access to information law, which would make diplomatic and military documents confidential, reported the Guatemalan Center for Investigative Reporting.
The Cuban Union of Journalists (UPEC in Spanish), a syndicate aligned with the Cuban government, demanded greater access to information from official sources, according to a statement by the union.
The Argentine newspaper La Nación is negotiating the takeover of the U.S. media company ImpreMedia, which owns seven Spanish language newspapers, including La Opinión in Los Angeles and New York's El Diario/La Prensa, the oldest Spanish-language daily in the United States, reported the New York Post. La Nación, based in Buenos Aires, is Argentina's second-largest daily.