Several freedom of information groups were outraged at a proposed reform to Guatemala's access to information law, which would make diplomatic and military documents confidential, reported the Guatemalan Center for Investigative Reporting.
Accusations on Twitter and other social networks led the Journalistic Observatory to investigate claims that executives of the official Guatemalan newspaper, Diario de Centro América, forced employees to stay inside the building and took away their cellphones, according to the Guatemalan Center for Investigative Reports.
Three Guatemalan journalists and a photographer are among 52 persons accused of participating in the kidnapping, torture, and killing of diplomats during this Central American country's civil war that lasted from 1960 to 1996.
A Guatemalan sports reporter claimed that a member of the board of directors of the Cobán Imperial soccer team tried to prevent him from entering the stadium to cover a game.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) criticized Guatemala's General Telecommunications Law, which allows for the nearly automatic renewal of radio and television frequencies for 25 years to those who already leased them.
Bodyguards for Deputy Mario Rivera brutally beat two television reporters in Guatemala, according to a report by elPeriódico.
Sylvia Gereda, co-founder and director of the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, said she decided to resign following a dispute with the other co-founders over shares in the newspaper that compromised its editorial independence in Gereda's opinion, according to a post made by the journalist on her blog. In a clarification, Jose Rubén Zamora, editor and founder of elPeriódico wrote, "I did not censor her work not is it true that Manuel Baldizón, presidential candidate, interferes, much less is the owner of elPeriódico, as she says."
In an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, editor Julie Lopez of Plaza Pública in Guatemala speaks about how the online, non-profit news site, aimed at providing an alternative perspective "not subject to political and economic pressures," got started, launching on Feb. 22, 2011. See below the video of her interview (in Spanish).
Plaza Pública is an online, independent, non-profit newspaper that began at the start of this year in Guatemala. In an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, journalist Martín Rodríguez Pellecer, founder and director of the site, described the newspaper as a platform in which citizens can discuss and debate and hold others accountable. Plaza Pública has dedicated itself to investigating and covering topics that the traditional Guatemalan press has considered taboo, such as the agrarian situation, corruption among governments and businesses, and drug trafficking. As Guatemala's presidentia
Guatemalan journalist Lucía Escobar received threats from members of a local security committee after publishing an article on the forced disappearance of a young person in the tourist town of Panajachel, in the western part of the country, reported the Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish).
Guatemalan journalist Claudia Mendez Arriaza, 35, is part of the 2012 class of Nieman Fellows. With 13 years of experience as a journalist -- she has worked as an editor and reporter at elPeriódico in Guatemala, and co-hosted the television show “A las 8:45” -- Mendez was named the 2012 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Latin American Nieman Fellow.
So far in 2011, there have been more attacks on journalists in Guatemala than in 2010, according the annual report from the Center of Informative Reports for Guatemala (CERIGUA).