The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji), one of the most important and active journalism organizations in the country, was chosen as the 2013 Personality of the Year by the Make a Difference Awards, which have been organized by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo for the last 11 years. The newspaper made the announcement on Saturday Jan. 27, and highlighted Abraji’s contributions to freedom of expression and information in the country.
Despite Latin American journalists' high interest in investigative journalism, there is a shortage of strong university-level programs to teach these skills and professional journalists consider that they do not have the resources in their newsrooms to conduct in-depth investigations
Superficial crime reporting that relies on bloody photos and spread, but lacks any explanation behind such photos, has become a common occurrence among Honduras' media outlets. The Fundación MEPI, a regional investigative journalism project based in Mexico City, says that its content analysis and interviews with reporters and editors have drawn out multiple reasons behind this growing trend: a lack of government-media implemented safety mechanisms to protect journalists, little access to timely official reports by the authorities, and fear of retaliation, if stories display too much context or insight.
More than 1,000 journalists from 80 different countries have gathered at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro for the Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
Journalist and analyst Claudia López fled Colombia due to alleged death threats by a criminal organization, she reported on Twitter.
A court in Paraná state, located in the south of Brazil, prohibited the newspaper Gazeta do Povo from publishing information about the ongoing investigations against the head judge of the State Supreme Court, appellate judge Clayton Camargo, in yet another case of judicial censorship in Brazil, reported the newspaper Zero Hora.
Despite difficulties in obtaining public records and information from both the U.S. and Mexican governments, reporters with Univision’s investigative unit were able to uncover numerous unknown details about the controversial gun-smuggling scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious.
The closure of the magazine Vanguardia in Ecuador at the end of June not only represented the loss of one of the few critical voices in the country -- it was also a devastating blow for the morale of the profession.
When the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) got its hands on a leak with millions of documents containing details on hundreds of secret companies in tax havens, it put together one of the most impressive groups of reporters ever assembled to participate in what the organization is already calling “the most ambitious cross-border investigative project in history." More than 100 reporters in 58 countries participated in examining the documents and have already produced several articles on what they have revealed.
A prisoner in Peru recently said that the assassins of photographer Luis Choy confessed to him that the motive of the crime was Choy's investigation into the alleged connections between a politician and drug trafficking.
In a video interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas during Investigative Reporters and Editors' 34th conference last week, where von Bertrab and the New York Times' David Barstow received the organization's 2012 award in the large print/online category, the Mexican journalist adviced her colleagues to take advantage now of the freedom and access gained from these types of laws.
The independent Mexican journalist Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her research on the network of bribery and corruption that was a key part of Wal-Mart de México’s expansion strategy, recounted to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas how she joined the investigation begun by David Barstow of the New York Times into the Mexican operations of the world’s largest supermarket chain.