The Chamber of Deputies approved a bill this week that would make public information accessible to citizens. The text now passes to the Senate.
Venezuela's new minister of communication and information, Tania Díaz, swore in the first 75 "communication guerrillas," members of school youth groups formed to “democratize” information and counterattack “the power of private media." See stories (in Spanish) by El Universal and El Nacional.
Chile's Law of Transparency and Access to Public information, which took effect last April, is helping national and international organizations that are seeking information about people who disappeared during the military dictatorship. Those people include U.S. citizen Boris Weisfeiler, Inter Press Service reports (in Spanish).
In a diplomatic offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez warned that the diffusion of videos by the rebel group represent an "apology for organized crime and terrorism," the AFP news service and Radio Caracol report (in Spanish).
Since President Nayib Bukele took office on June 1, 2019, Salvadoran journalists in the country say public institutions and officials are increasingly less accessible as sources
The Forum on the Right of Access to Public Information changed its composition and resumed activities to face threats against public transparency and to monitor compliance with the Access to Information Law (LAI, for its acronym in Portuguese) in Brazil.
A total of 37.4 million Brazilians (equivalent to 17.9 percent of the population) live in the so-called news deserts, meaning, municipalities where there is not even one journalistic outlet. To these are added 27.5 million (13.2 percent of Brazilians) who live in “quasi deserts,” with up to two journalistic outlets.
The Colombian press had to overcome several obstacles to cover the municipal and regional elections of Oct. 27 in Colombia, according to the Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP, for its initials in Spanish) of Colombia. FLIP recorded nine cases of restriction to the press by the National Police. In some, law enforcement did not allow journalists […]