Paraguayan journalist Pablo Medina Velázquez, murdered in the northeastern Canindeyú department while working on assignment, is the third journalist to be killed in the country this year and the latest in a series of journalists to be killed in the region in recent years. His death underscores the dangerous and deteriorating conditions for journalists working along the Brazilian border.
Mainstream media coverage of Brazilian protests in June, 2013, both on websites and Twitter, highlighted riots and acts of vandalism, rather than demands made by protestors, according to a University of Texas researcher. The findings, which shed light on the role of media in the portrayal of protests, were presented at the 2014 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference in Montreal, Canada.
The ability to cope with a disruptive environment and an awareness of new technological resources are key skills for the 21st century journalist. This was the lesson highlighted by a group of eight students who participated in a recent Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC, through the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. The students won scholarships to attend the 10th Brazilian Congress of Newspapers (CBJ by its initials in Portuguese) and visit the facilities of Google Brasil.
A Paraguayan radio host was shot and killed in his home on June 19, just over one month after another radio reporter was killed on the same region, near the border with Brazil. Édgar Fernández Fleitas was a known critic of the local justice system and could have been killed in retribution for criticisms he made of local officials, according to newspaper ABC Color.
In the middle of the June 2013 protests that brought thousands of people to the Brazilian streets, the carioca newspaper Extra took advantage of the popular mobilization to start a pioneering project in the country: The use of a message app, WhatsApp in news coverage. Quick, simple, and direct, the readers started sending texts photos and videos directly to the publication. In an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas the editor Fábio Gusmão, the founder of the project, strikes a balance with that collaboration and is excited about the results of the initiative. This Tuesday (June 24th)
To create more awareness and knowledge in Brazil about the country's young Public Information Law -- which was approved two years ago on May 16, 2012 -- the Brazilian Investigative Journalism Association (Abraji) published this week on its site the guide in Portuguese “Public Information Law -- What you need to know,” with the financial support of UNESCO's International Program for the Development of Communication.
Paraguayan journalist Fausto Gabriel Alcaraz was shot and killed on Friday May 16 in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, on the border with Brazil, several local media outlets reported.
After almost three years of discussions and negotiations, a bill proposing a legal framework for internet operations in Brazil was approved by the two chambers of Congress and signed into law by President Dilma Rousseff on April 23 in São Paulo, during the opening of the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance - NET Mundial, Agência Brasil informed.
Three Latin American countries were listed in the latest edition of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Global Impunity Index. Mexico, Colombia and Brazil occupied, respectively, the seventh, eighth and eleventh place on the list.
Last week Brazil's Secretary of Human Rights Maria do Rosário announced new recommendations to protect journalists, which would include providing a Federal Police security detail to threatened journalists, reported news portal A Tarde.