Freelance journalist Solly Boussidan was arrested by Russian authorities Friday, Jan. 28, in the city of Sochi, accused of reporting without the necessary accreditation, reported the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, the news outlet with with which he collaborates.
Radio announcer Ivan Carlos de Oliveira Silva was arrested Jan. 26 in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia, and charged with extorting his former boss: businessman Diogo Medrado, son of Federal Deputy Marcos Medrado of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT). According to A Tarde, the host was fired from the younger Medrado’s station in December and had allegedly asked the businessman for almost $90,000 in cash and a $40,000 car to not release unflattering recordings.
O Estado do Paraná newspaper, whose print edition circulated in Curitiba for 59 years, will abandon print and go entirely online, Folha de S. Paulo and Meio & Mensagem report.
The morning of Jan. 24, a helicopter for TV Globo was shot at three times as it attempted to film images of a police operation in a favela, or shanty town, in northern Río de Janeiro, reported Bom Dia Brasil. The shots to the base, center and tail of the aircraft forced the pilot to make an emergency landing at a nearby airport.
The house of Orley Antunes, editor of the Brazilian newspaper Morretes Notícia, was was the target of a bomb attack on Jan. 17 in the town of Morretes in the southern coastal state of Paraná, reported that same newspaper.
The newspaper Novo Jornal reports that its journalists were not allowed to leave the offices of businessman Augusto Caldar Targino, ex director of the Rio Grande do Norte’s consumer protection agency, while he threatened and berated them. (Listen to a recording of the incident in Portuguese here.)
Three managers of the Brazilian soccer team Palmeiras attacked news photographer Thiago Vieira, of the newspaper Agora (owned by media company Folha), because they felt "offended" by comments sent out via Twitter, reported Folha.com.
The community station Friburgo FM is helping the citizens of Nova Friburgo find people missing in the Rio de Janeiro floods that have killed more than 600, Folha de S. Paulo reports.
The new communications minister, Paulo Bernardo, said he supported a rule that bars a company from owning a radio station, newspaper, and TV station in the same region, Folha de S. Paulo reports. He made the statements in an interview with TV Brasil (see the video below).
The mayor of Santa Branca, São Paulo, Odair Leal da Rocha Júnior (PMDB), threatened a crew for the Record TV network that was trying to interview him about alleged corruption in his administration, the station reports. Later that day, the mayor was arrested under suspicion of dealing drugs.
In a Jan. 9 column, the ombudsman for the Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo said the paper’s case against the Falha de S. Paulo (São Paulo Failure) parody blog was more harmful than the blog itself.
While in a boat covering former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s vacation in the coastal city of Guarujá, two reporters for Folha de S. Paulo newspaper were stopped by a government-run security team and had their equipment confiscated, Folha reports.