Press groups in Bolivia criticized the “hasty” and “incomplete” reform of the Electoral Systems Law, which will continue to bar media outlets from reporting on or airing opinions about judicial elections, Los Tiempos reports.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and Brazil’s National Newspaper Association (ANJ) will hold the "International Forum on Freedom of Expression and the Judiciary” Friday, May 27 in Brasília. Participants will meet in the offices of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to discuss the relationship between press law and press freedom in Brazil and abroad.
Federal prosecutors in Brazil announced charges against João Dorileo Leal, a top executive at Grupo Gazeta, the largest media company in Mato Grosso state, for laundering money earned from illegal gambling, Folha de São Paulo reports.
In two separate incidents, journalists in Ecuador say they are being targeted for their critical reporting on the powerful. In the first case, Fundamedios reports via IFEX that a prosecutor in the coastal city of Manta is suing five directors and journalists who work for the Ediasa media group for libel over an article reporting allegations that he accepted a bribe.
Fernando Collor de Mello, an impeached ex president and current senator, has once again ruined the government’s plan to quickly pass a law regulating access to classified documents, iG reports.
Journalists in Campina Grande, the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Paraíba, marched May 17 against the local government for data restrictions adopted by the police and the Institute of Forensic Medicine, PB Agora reports.
After a workshop on teaching border reporting held April 29-May 1 at the University of Arizona, journalism educators from nine U.S. colleges have joined forces to establish the Border Journalism Network/La Red de Periodismo de la Frontera, according to a University of Arizona statement.
With the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting 861 journalists killed in the line of duty since 1992, and another 145 in prison currently, YouTube has launched a journalist memorial video channel, according to ReadWriteWeb.
Journalists and citizens from throughout Central America are coming together to discuss the "urgent" issues facing the region as part of the 2011 Central American Forum on Journalism, organized by the Salvadoran digital newspaper El Faro, or The Lighthouse. The forum got underway Monday, May 16, and will continue through Saturday, May 21, in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Reporting on the illegal narcotics industry and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean is much more difficult, complex and dangerous than it looks like, according to a new digital book in English and Spanish released by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in conjunction with the Open Society Foundations.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was just elected to a third term, has received, for the second year in a row, an "F-" in access to information, according to the National Post.
In a talk to commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Brazil’s UNESCO representative, Vincent Defourny, called for the passage of a stalled public information access law, G1 reports.