Honduran journalist Karla Rivas became the first woman honored with the 2011 Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism awarded by Reporters Without Borders and the Global Media Forum on Oct. 20, announced the organizations.
The journalist Juan Carlos Calderon, co author of the book El Gran Hermano (Big Brother), was threatened via telephone by an anonymous source, according to Fundamedios. The journalist was threatened: “You will be next.”
The Chilean Association of Foreign Correspondents issued a formal complaint against the Chilean police for kidnapping and attacking journalists on Friday, Oct. 14, reported the newspaper El Comercio. This is the first accusation of kidnapping and targeting of journalists by the police since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1990, reported the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
Carlos Curcio, a columnist for the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Cidade, was found dead on the morning of Oct. 13, in his apartment in Rio Claro, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, reported the website Terra.
On Oct. 9, Brazilian journalist Antonio Carlos Ferrari was attacked and threatened at an event at the Itaporã city hall in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul after reporting on a local family accused of maintaining slave labor, according to the website Dourado News.
Luis García Heras and Sandro Malca Baca, two reporters with the station Radio Armonía in Peru, said they received death threats from another station's owner and radio host, reported the Press and Society Institute.
The newspaper El Sol del Sur published a leaflet denouncing telephone threats it received, the sabotage of its website, and police aggression against reporters covering the expulsion of street vendors in Cuidad Madero in the border state of Tamaulipas.
Panamericana de Televisión reporter Carlos Comacho claims that he was beaten by five unidentified subjects when he arrived at his home in Lima, Perú, according to the newspaper El Comercio.
Soon after a judge suspended Emilio Palacio's three-year prison sentence and multimillion-dollar fine for committing libel against Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, another judge announced he would hear a new case against the embattled journalist, this time for slander, reported AFP.
the northern city of Salta, reported the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA). The station's owner, Daniel Longarela, told FOPEA that the assailants intentionally cut the tethers that supported the antenna on Oct. 3. Since then, channels 2 and 10 have continued broadcasting but only with low power equipment, while Radio Mitre's broadcasts were completely shut down.
A Brazilian news team investigating an attack by a soccer fan club on a player found themselves the target of violence by the same club on Oct. 12, reported the sports newspaper UOL Esporte.
With more than 500 killings during the last 10 years, journalism is one of the most dangerous professions in the world, according to an alert from the United Nations.