A court in El Salvador has ruled against Colonel José Arturo Rodríguez Martínez in his defamation suit against La Prensa Gráfica newspaper for an article alleging he had ties to Mexican drug traffickers, El Mundo reports.
A court temporarily stayed a libel and slander case against Grisel Bethancourt, the president of Panama's National Journalism Guild (CONAPE), over an article with judicial information about the slaying of a girl, TVN News reported.
Peru’s Congress has passed a bill replacing prison time for defamation and libel offenses with fines and community service, Perú.com reports. The change was passed June 21, but it still needs the president’s signature to become law.
On July 20, a group of journalists in the northeast Brazilian state of Paraíba sent an open letter to the state’s Brazilian Bar Association section (OAB/PB) and the Paraiba Press Association, in which they allege persecution and freedom of expression violations by regional authorities, Paraíba 1 reports.
Every day dozens of celebrities worldwide are hounded by the press for scoops on things like alleged plastic surgeries, pregnancies, or their romantic lives. A member of Chile’s House of Deputies, inspired by recent press harassment faced by a former beauty queen, believes that journalists have gone too far and that their behavior needs to be reined in.
The directors of El Universo newspaper in Ecuador announced that the newspaper would continue circulating and reporting, in spite of the July 20 ruling that sentenced the paper, its directors, and an editor to $40 million in damages and three years in prison.
The National Board of Elections (JNE), Peru’s highest electoral authority, has presented a formal complaint against Uri Ben Schmuel, the director of La Razón newspaper, for not including the complete datasheet of a poll published in the paper, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.
After a series of firings and journalists quitting because of complaints of censorship during the recent presidential campaign in Peru, the sudden cancellation of one of the most watched and credible journalistic programs in Peru has prompted a debate about freedom of expression and the impact of media monopolies on citizens' right to information.
First came an accusation against a journalist who refused to reveal his sources after publishing in the Brazilian newspaper Diário da Região information from phone calls secretly recorded as part of a judicial investigation in São José do Rio Preto. Now Brazilian federal police say they plan to go after the newspaper's editor, too, reported Folha de S. Paulo.
Associated Press employees have been warned to not share their opinions via social media, Poynter reports, lest they damage the reputation of the 165-year-old international news network.