Sunday, May 3, marked 10 years since the death of Brazilian investigative journalist Tim Lopes, who was tortured and killed while reporting on a favela, or slum, in Rio de Janeiro. A decade later, 2012 has become the most violent year for Brazilian journalists, according to the newspaper Estado de São Paulo. In just five months, four journalists have been killed for their work.
In the making of investigative reports, journalists need to work with different sources, codes, and data of varying formats. Online, there are tools available for creating and manipulating databases, but the question is knowing which are the most useful for investigative journalism. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas asked this question to four Brazilian reporters.
As a consequence of complaints made to the Journalists Association of La Paz by a former commander of the National Police of Bolivia, a Bolivian journalist denied being guilty of extortion and said that he was threatened, reported the newspaper La Razón.
Two editors from TV channel Canal 13 of Chile resigned, alleging censorship after they were told to stop working on a a controversial report about discrimination against domestic workers in the country, reported the news agency Emol and the Radio Universidad de Chile.
About 40 journalists, media executives, and academic researchers from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal met in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, April 22, for the fifth annual Ibero-American Colloquium on Digital Journalism, organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Following the steps of newspapers such as The Guardian (United Kingdom), Los Angeles Times (USA), La Información (Spain), and La Nación (Argentina), the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo launched on its website the blog "Afinal de Contas," or After All.
Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández was awarded the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize given by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). Hernández was recognized for her investigative reporting on corruption and the abuse of power in Mexican politics, the association announced on its website on Thursday, March 1.
With slightly more than a week under its belt, the new Reporters' Lab website is aiming to arm reporters with the tools, techniques, and research to better cover stories of public interest, hold the government accountable, and preserve investigative reporting.
The Florida city of Lauderdale Lakes has sent local blogger Chaz Stevens a "cease-and-desist" legal notice, saying the city will sue for civil damages if the blogger continues his "repeated false allegations, threats, attempted extortion, slander, libel, defamation, and invasion of privacy," reported the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.
In its first study of online journalism in Colombia, the Consejo de Redacción, or Newsroom Council, (CdR in Spanish) looked at who is producing online journalism in this South American country and how. The report found that since Colombia first connected to the Internet on July 4, 1994, online media have become "the protagonists of a quiet revolution in Colombia."
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