In recent months, headlines in media outlets from Cuba to Brazil highlight the murders of Black and Indigenous men and youth, placing them in the context of a notorious case that had global repercussions.
In addition to having a larger audience, the online model allowed the public to be more diverse, with the attendance of students, journalists and professors of various regions of the country, including people that maybe would not have had resources to travel to São Paulo.
Between January and June of 2020, Voces del Sur, a Latin American initiative, registered 630 aggressions against the press in the region. These went on the rise or worsened after governments issued a health emergency.
The amount raised was used to hire journalists, move the newsroom to a larger and safer building, and to purchase equipment
Officials of the city of Rio organize to block journalists from carrying out their work in front of health units. Organizations denounce the systematic efforts against press freedom.
“We joke that if a reporter were to come from mars, know Portuguese, and read the manual, he would be able to get by the elections”, said Angela Pimenta, who is the editor of the project and director of operations of Projor
The Brazilian president's threat of physical violence against a journalist who asked him a question puts the conflictual relationship that he has had with the press since before becoming president on a different level, according to press freedom organizations.
Digital Natives: Agência Infra, which started 2017, is a Brazilian digital news organization that covers infrastructure projects for a demanding public and experiments with different products and services.
Brazilian reporter Patricia Campos Mello was one of the winner of the 2020 Maria Moors Cabot. The Columbia Journalism School described Campos Mello as “a fearless investigative reporter.”
Across Latinamerica, journalists who dedicate themselves exclusively to working as freelancers shared the common problems they face and the methods of survival they developed in a competitive and undervalued market.
Bocado, which launched at the end of June, is a regional network of journalists with the objective of making investigative and in-depth articles about food in Latin America in Portuguese and Spanish.
Brazilian digital media outlets like JOTA, NEX and Ponte grew during the COVID-19 pandemic and they are betting more and more on their subscriptions and membership programs to keep themselves afloat.