When Ecuador approved the Organic Law of Communication (LOC for its acronym in Spanish) in 2013, different organizations inside and outside the country expressed concern about the negative effects that the standard could have on freedom of expression.
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One year after the launch of Brazil’s Association of Education Journalists, also known as Jeduca, the organization is hosting its inaugural Congress on Education Journalism to address the challenges facing the reporting specialization in the current news environment.
After The New York Times published an investigation reporting the use of malware to infect devices of journalists and critics of the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a group of journalists and human rights defenders in that country formally denounced a spying case allegedly carried out against them by Government agencies.
More than 100 countries in the world have a law in their national legislation that allows access to public information. Latin America is the region with developing countries that has advanced most in this respect, even surpassing certain aspects of the laws of European Union countries, according to the recent Unesco report, "Access to Information: Lessons from Latin America.”
Oil spills in the Amazon, indigenous peoples fighting for their native territories, protected areas threatened by oil drilling and illegal mining activity, the great impact of livestock farming on the forests of protected areas and natural disasters were the most popular issues for readers of digital site Mongabay-Latinomérica in its first year.
Daily obstacles motivated Panamanian journalists Ana Graciela Méndez and Alfonso Grimaldo to create El Tabulario – a project, launched at the end of May, which collects, analyzes and disseminates public data with the aim of promoting transparency in the country.
Civil society representatives from Uruguay called on their government to effectively implement the Law of Audiovisual Communication Services (SCA for its acronym in Spanish) and involve them in the development and implementation of the guidelines regulating it.
Civil servants who do not comply with the Law on Access to Information (LAI) in Brazil are not punished, according to a recent report from Article 19 Brazil, an NGO that defends freedom of expression and the right to information. The report was launched in celebration of the five-year law, which became effective on May 16.
Fiquem Sabendo, an independent data journalism website founded by Brazilian journalist Léo Arcoverde, celebrates its two year anniversary in May with hundreds of reports and more than one thousand applications to the Law for Access to Information.
Journalists from both sides of the border tackled modernization, fake news and corruption during the Bridging the Border seminar the day before the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) on Thursday, April 20.
After criticism from journalist associations and entities, Judge Sergio Moro, who is responsible for cases dealing with the Lava Jato corruption scandal, backed down from the decision to access communications of Brazilian blogger Eduardo Guimarães. In an order published on March 23, Moro annulled the material obtained with the seizure of Guimarães’ telephones and computers, which would allow the identification of his sources.