The government of Álvaro Colom has denounced a supposed plot to destabilize the country by various groups who are supported by "biased media" that "sell their pens to the highest bidder,” reported Siglo XXI and EFE.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its 2010 survey of journalists living in exile.
In the newspaper elPeriodico, columnist Dina Fernandez criticized journalists for still accepting bribes, and chastised the journalists' guild for remaining silent when it comes to corruption within the press.
Guatedigital brought the news that Aníbal Archila, a reporter for Noti7 TV, was declared missing Thursday night (May 27) after being hit and injured by volcanic debris while covering the eruption south of Guatemala City, EFE says. His body was later discovered, and his shaken colleagues announced Archila's death live on the air. (See these videos on the CNN and LA Observed sites.)
On a week of nonstop aggressions and attacks against journalists in Latin America, this news post from journalist Martin Angel Tax alerts us to the shooting Thursday evening of Luis Felipe Valenzuela, director of the Emisoras Unidas radio network.
Héctor Cordero, a correspondent for TV Guatevisión in Quiché department (northwest of Guatemala City), says he has received phone calls threatening to kill him and warning that his family would pay the consequences for his work, Prensa Libre reports.
Guatemalan investigative journalist Marvin del Cid Acevedo, who works for the newspaper elPeriódico, has received several death threats recently, after writing about official corruption and serving as a witness in a murder trial against security forces, reported Amnesty International.
Journalist Bryan Leonel Guerra died on March 3 after being shot less than a week earlier in the city of Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala.
Guatemalan journalist Martín Rodríguez Pellecer, founder and director of the site Nómada, is being accused of sexually harassing at least five women, according to an investigation by journalist Catalina Ruiz-Navarro. All are young journalists, and three of them allegedly are former employees of the site founded by Rodríguez Pellecer in 2014. He denies the accusations and has stepped down as director of Nómada while an investigation into the case is under way.