A reporting team for the Venezuelan television broadcaster RCTV was attacked at the Central University of Venezuela's (UCV in Spanish) communications school while covering violence that erupted after the release of student election results on Jan. 18, reported the organization Public Space.
Reporting on the repossession of land seized in the community of Pinheirinho, in São José dos Campos in the interior of the state of São Paulo, has been marred by police brutality and the curtailment of press freedom.
A Brazilian journalist was attacked and his camera was damaged while covering a protest on the streets of Teresina, in the state of Piauí on Jan. 19, reported TV Piauí. The reporter believes his attacker was a security guard with the Union of Urban Transport Businesses of Teresina.
Police in Uruguay's second largest city, Salto, opened an internal investigation on Jan. 19 to determine responsibility for an attack on the reporter Luis Díaz for the newspaper El Pueblo, reported the publication.
U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faced off with CNN's John King during the South Carolina debate Thursday, Jan, 19, accusing the "destructive, vicious, negative" media of making it "harder to govern this country," reported Politico. Following the debate, which King moderated, CNN’s David Gergen said on the air that Gingrich's anti-media rant represented "one of the harshest attacks that we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time,” Politico added.
Brazilian journalists received death threats over e-mail after reporting on investigations by the State Public Ministry into family members and other people connected to the city's mayor, Silvio Félix, according to Canal Rio Claro. The reporters, in the city of Limeira, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, are from the newspapers Gazeta de Limeira and Jornal de Limeira, and TV Jornal.
An Argentine journalist was unlawfully detained after filming a violent police confrontation, reported the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish). Along with being detained for nine hours, the journalist claims police forced him to erase the recording.
Brazilian police alerted a Paraguayan journalist of a plot to kill him, reported the newspaper Última Hora. The plot to kill Cándido Figueredo, correspondent for ABC Color in Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, was discovered by Brazilian authorities after intercepting a telephone call.
On Sunday, Jan. 15, drug users attacked photojournalists who were reporting in a central area of São Paulo, Brazil, known as "Crackland," reported the website Band News.
A Mexican photojournalist was beaten and arrested by police in the border city of Ciudad Juárez after the police were photographed arresting an indigent person, according to the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET in Spanish).
A Brazilian journalist was beaten and his memory card stolen by alleged plainclothes police while covering the repression of a student protest in the city of Teresina, capital of the state of Piauí in the evening of Jan. 10, reported the website O Dia.
Investigations have concluded that the killing of Mexican reporter Raúl Régulo Garza Quirino in the border state of Nuevo León was a case of mistaken identity, according to Reporters Without Borders.