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.
The series of recommendations to change the inter-American system of human rights, presented by the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States on Jan. 25, would limit the authority of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), especially the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.
Since it launched in September 2011, thousands of journalists have signed on to use the Facebook "subscribe" feature, which allows users to subscribe to the news feeds of journalists and public figures without having to befriend them. And since November, the average journalist has seen a 320 percent increase in the number of subscribers, Facebook is reporting.
The outcome of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa's lawsuit against the newspaper El Universo remains unsettled after a scheduled hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 24, was suspended when one of the trial's three judges got sick, according to the news agency EFE.
Taking advantage of YouTube's massive audience -- the online site streams 4 billion videos a day and one hour of video is uploaded every second -- the Reuters news agency has announced the launch of Reuters TV, which will offer 10 different shows on the Reuters YouTube channel, according to Mashable.
Knowing how to write source code and manage data sets are skills no longer reserved for nerds; data journalism is a growing field in reporting. But, if you're not part of the (big) group of journalists that aren't familiar with coding, you can still take advantage of some digital tools to lessen the work behind a story.