José Cristian Góes, a reporter from the Brazilian state of Sergipe, was sentenced on July 4 to seven months and a week in jail for writing and posting a fictional short story on local political cronyism in May 2012 for his blog Infonet, reported the daily Conjur.
Amid the massive protests spreading throughout Brazil -- sparked by an increase in bus fares -- the mass media coverage also has become a target of criticism.
Thousands of Venezuelans that used to support Globovisión, a television channel that before being sold a few weeks ago was known for its opposition to the Chavista government, expressed their resentment on Twitter and unfollowed the channel after journalist Francisco 'Kiko' Bautista was fired, reported newspaper El Universal.
Judges from the Brazilian capital decided on Wednesday, May 22, to uphold an order to censor newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, which continues to be unable to publish news stories about a police operation that involved relatives of prominent politician José Sarney, reported the newspaper.
The president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo, has presented the Congress with a proposal that toughens content regulations on the media, including regulation on schedules and punishments for broadcasting violent or obscene content, content that celebrates or defends crime, or content that goes against morals and good behavior, said La Prensa. Lobo’s proposed telecom law is popularly known as the “ley mordaza” – the gag law – due to its restrictions on press freedom.
Brazil has a big lead as the country with the most government requests to remove online content by judicial order in the latest Google Transparency Report, released on Thursday, April 25. In the period between July and December 2012, the search giant received 1,461 court-ordered requests from governments around the world to remove content, including YouTube videos and search results, with nearly 43 percent of them coming from Brazilian authorities.
Various journalists have claimed that their coverage was restricted during the recent elections in Venezuela, won by Hugo Chávez’s designated successor Nicolás Maduro. According to the Press and Society Institute (IPYS), some local journalists had problems getting into voting centers and were impeded by the authorities.
A new report found that a majority of the 32 state governments in Mexico hides information regarding their official advertising expenses in media outlets and that none of them has specific rules on how they allocate their publicity budgets. "This discretionary distribution of advertising funds weakens informative pluralism and increases suspicions of political favoritism," said the organization Fundar, which put together the second edition of the report Access to Official Advertising Funds Index along with the Mexican chapter of the press freedom organization Article 19.
The Honduran National Commissioner on Human Rights, Ramón Custodio, suggested that a proposed telecommunications bill would enable censorship, violate the right to private property and make the state a content producer, according to the newspaper La Tribuna
At least two other news teams have been kept from covering events related to the death of Hugo Chávez last week. On Feb. 7, a group identified as government supporters intimidated and threatened correspondent Luis Alfonso Fernández for the broadcaster América Noticias and a cameraman for the network Alberto Porras
A research from the non-governmental organization Article 19 finds that one journalist or human rights defender is killed every four weeks because of their work.
The Committee to Protect Journalists submitted a report on threats against the press in Latin American countries to the president of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil, Joaquim Barbosa, on Wednesday, March 6, reported the Court's website.