International broadcasters are looking into muting or filtering the blaring ambient noise of the vuvuzela at the World Cup, but Brazilians have an additional complaint: the national team’s play-by-play announcer Galvão Bueno. His non-stop talking during the opening ceremony led to millions of posts on Twitter of “Cala boca, Galvão” (Shut up, Galvão), making it the site's top trending topic for the last five days.
The two papers, Clarín and La Nación, owner of 71.5 percent of the shares of Papel Prensa, have published a letter in which they urge the government to sell its shares so the newsprint company can operate “without political interference."
Crítica newspaper of Buenos Aires stopped circulating more than a month ago when its 190 employees went on strike April 29 over not receiving their paychecks. Fearing the closure of the paper, the journalists united in a resistance movement, which includes a 24-hour camp-out in the newsroom and demonstrations in the street. (See this vídeo), and campaigns in a blog and on Twitter.
President Sebastián Piñera agreed to sell his TV channel Chilevisión to local private equity investors Linzor Capital for $130 million, Dow Jones reports, citing Chilean news reports. (See Spanish version of this post.)
Only a month after taking office, President Sebastián Piñera faces growing criticism by opponents and allies for not having transferred his ownership of the channel Chilevisión to a nonprofit organization as he promised during his campaign, La Nación and EFE report.
The closure of Cambio news magazine and the termination of its two top editors are described by its owner, El Tiempo publishing group, as an economic decision, but the dismissed editor-in-chief and managing editor believe political motivations were at play. See this story in English by Colombia Reports.
Journalists in Latin America are being hit by unemployment, the lack of protective sanitary equipment from their employers and the general precariousness of their situation.