Documents obtained by judicial order show that the company JBS, one of the largest food company in the world, and another company contracted by it in 2015 sponsored a smear campaign against Brazilian journalist and founder of the nonprofit organization Reporter Brazil, Leonardo Sakamoto. The information was published by Folha de S. Paulo on April 8.
Since Operation Car Wash began in March 2014, it has dominated the political agenda in Brazil. Considered by the Federal Police as the biggest corruption investigation ever undertaken in the country, its coverage is a challenge even for experienced journalists, like the editor in chief of Época magazine, Diego Escosteguy.
Journaist Ivan Pereira Costa was shot outside his home in Cujubim, Rondônia, in northwestern Brazil. His wife, journalist Ediléia Santos Silva, told G1 that the attempted murder may be related to her husband's work.
Businessman Ronan Maria Pinto, owner of São Paulo newspaper Diário do Grande ABC, was arrested on April 1 as part of Operation Car Wash, an investigation into corruption in the Brazilian government and various companies. The investigation has fueled a political crisis in Brazil that reaches the top levels of government.
A Brazilian radio host survived what police said was an attempt on his life motivated by his reports on illegal activity. Jair Pereira Teixeira, 45, was shot three times on March 27 in Forquilha in the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil.
A full-time reporter. That is how Elvira Lobato, one of the most award-winning and prestigious journalists in Brazil with 39 years dedicated to print journalism, described herself. Even after deciding to retire from Folha de São Paulo in 2011, where she was a special reporter and worked for 27 years, her “destiny” to investigate would not allow her to leave the field. In February, Lobato published a series of reports on television concessions in the Amazon in partnership with independent news site Agência Publica.
After a TV crew was taken hostage in Paraná, a station invaded in Goiania and eight reporters beaten in São Paulo, on March 10, UNESCO and representatives of Brazilian media corporations delivered a letter to the country’s Minister of Social Communication calling for action to protect journalists and to ensure the media can work safely during the coverage of corruption investigations in the country.
According to witnesses, two people on a motorcycle fired eight shots at a car parked in the garage of Brazilian journalist Kenedy Salomé Lenk in the early morning hours of March 10, reported newspaper O Globo. The journalist, his wife and daughter were asleep inside the house at the time.
Brazilian radio host João Valdecir de Borba, known as Valdão, was killed on March 10 while working in the studios of Rádio Difusora AM in São Jorge do Oeste, southwestern Paraná state.
Every seven minutes, a complaint of violence against women is registered in Brazil, according to the Secretariat of Policies for Women. On International Women's Day, March 8, Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo published these reports via Twitter at the exact frequency that they occur: every seven minutes. The newspaper posted real complaints collected by the Center for Assistance to Women — Dial 180.
The number of fact-checking journalistic projects around the world has almost doubled between 2015 and 2016, according to an annual census of the Duke Reporters' Lab. According to the study, there are now 96 active fact-checking projects in 37 countries - in 2015, there were 64 projects, and 44 the previous year.
Agência Pública, a prime example of the independent media landscape in Brazil, has launched two innovations during the month of its five-year anniversary: a cultural center to support independent journalism and an unprecedented interactive map on new journalistic initiatives in the country.