Journalist Marcelo Garay Vergara could be sentenced to up to 200 days in prison for taking unauthorized photos of the Mapuche conflict from inside a farm in Padre Las Casas, in the south of Chile, reported La Nación. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 21.
Brazil’s 2010 elections has been marked by the use of the internet as a means of broadening information access and bringing citizens into the electoral process, Global Voices’ Manuella Ribeiro writes. In this world of “Politics 2.0,” the candidates are using social media to campaign and participate in debates, while transparency and citizen participation projects are proliferating on the internet.
Argentine senators unanimously approved a bill guaranteeing free public information access in the country, reported La Nación. The measure will go to the House for debate at the end of the month, and is expected to be approved, added the state agency Télam and the publication Perfil.
“Silence or Death in Mexico's Press” is the title of the just-released 2010 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The report is an accounting of the crisis in freedom of expression and access to information resulting from surging organized crime, violence and corruption.
Brazil's first online presidential debate, provided by Folha de S. Paulo and the website UOL and still available online, attracted more than 1.7 million views during its first day up on the Internet, reported M&M Online. The debate took place Wednesday, Aug. 18.
During the wave of violence in Kenya in 2008, that stemmed from conflicts among rival political factions, a group of friends created a system in which persons in various locations could send and share, via the Internet, news about attacks and killings. The Ushahidi (witness in Swahili) online platform became a model of success for participative coverage of news worldwide. Now the system has come to Brazil, with Voter 2010, an unprecedented election monitoring tool for citizens.
Even as violence and kidnappings are pressuring mainstream Mexican media into silence, an anonymous blog that is less than six-months-old has become one of the main sources for news about the country's out-of-control drug war, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Almost two years after the enactment of the Law on Access to Public Information (Law 18.381) in Uruguay, the administration has published a decree regulating its use. To incite journalists from throughout the country to take advantage of the law, the Archives and Access to Public Information Center launched this week a campaign, “Make Your Own Request.”
Trying to find information about a journalism program at a university in Guatemala or a journalism professor in Brazil? A new online database from the World Journalism Education Council and the Knight Foundation will help you do just that.
Javier Canales and Alejandro Hernández, two of the four journalists kidnapped by drug gangs in Durango state, were freed in a rescue operation Saturday, AFP reports. Cameraman Héctor Gordoa was freed Thursday and La Cronica de Hoy reports that the journalist Óscar Solís had been released last Tuesday.