Across Bolivia, El Salvador and Peru, the spread of disinformation has disproportionately impacted marginalized communities amidst sociopolitical conflict in recent years. Local non-governmental organizations in these countries conducted information ecosystem research to understand its impacts.
In an almost untouched coastal jungle region in Honduras, packages of cocaine are thrown into the sea by ships that evade inspection. This real drama is reported in the series “Moskitia: The Honduran Jungle Drowning in Cocaine,” winner of the Ortega y Gasset award.
Directors of El Faro (El Salvador) and Confidencial (Nicaragua) pointed to risk assessment, complete trust between editors and reporters, legal defense and psychological support as fundamental elements to preserve the well-being and safety of their teams in the face of harassment, threats and criminalization.
With their campaigns against independent media, the governments of several Latin American countries are beginning to threaten press freedom. Can Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega's extreme of media blockages and closures be replicated?
Journalists from El Salvador and press freedom organizations fear that, with the re-election of Nayib Bukele as president, harassment against journalists will worsen and reforms could be approved to criminalize their work.
The team at Revista Elementos released the first season of the podcast Misceláneo that tells about the journeys of four Salvadoran journalists and seeks to change the government narrative of criminalization towards their profession.
El Salvador's most acclaimed newspaper relocated its administrative and legal departments to Costa Rica, due to harassment and government surveillance. However, its journalists remain in the country. Co-founder Carlos Dada told LJR how the move allows them to continue doing their investigative work, while expressing concerns over authoritarianism and potential criminalization of journalists.
Attorneys for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University are hopeful that Pegasus manufacturer NSO Group will be held accountable in their lawsuit on behalf of Salvadoran journalists. Reporters from the news site El Faro believe the suit will set an important precedent for the protection of journalists across the globe.
Fifteen journalists from digital outlet El Faro of El Salvador have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court against NSO Group, the Israeli company that makes the Pegasus spyware. “It is necessary to set a precedent so that the companies that promote this espionage market, as well as the customers that run this program, know that their actions have consequences,” said Julia Gavarrete, one of the journalists from El Faro who filed the lawsuit in U.S. courts.
Faced with the recent escalation of attacks on freedoms of the press and expression in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, journalists from these countries have come together to create the Red Centroamericana de Periodistas [Central American Network of Journalists]. Guatemalan Marielos Monzón, one of the Network’s founders, spoke to LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) about the goals and lines of work of this initiative in defense of journalism and the citizens’ right to be informed.
Carlos Dada and his team at El Faro have illuminated the dark corners of his country and surrounding region since he co-founded the outlet — the first digital-only media initiative in Latin America — with entrepreneur Jorge Simán in 1998. For doing so, they have drawn the ire of an increasingly authoritarian Salvadoran government.
Voces del Sur reports that 170 journalists from the region were forced into exile in 2020 and 2021 to escape arbitrary imprisonment or even assassination attempts. To understand this worrying exodus, GIJN spoke with exiled members of the press from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, and Colombia, who shared how they had been pushed into exile, and gave tips for other watchdog journalists who face similar threats.