A Brazilian journalist was attacked and his camera was damaged while covering a protest on the streets of Teresina, in the state of Piauí on Jan. 19, reported TV Piauí. The reporter believes his attacker was a security guard with the Union of Urban Transport Businesses of Teresina.
Police in Uruguay's second largest city, Salto, opened an internal investigation on Jan. 19 to determine responsibility for an attack on the reporter Luis Díaz for the newspaper El Pueblo, reported the publication.
U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faced off with CNN's John King during the South Carolina debate Thursday, Jan, 19, accusing the "destructive, vicious, negative" media of making it "harder to govern this country," reported Politico. Following the debate, which King moderated, CNN’s David Gergen said on the air that Gingrich's anti-media rant represented "one of the harshest attacks that we’ve had on the press that I can remember in a long, long time,” Politico added.
An Argentine journalist was unlawfully detained after filming a violent police confrontation, reported the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish). Along with being detained for nine hours, the journalist claims police forced him to erase the recording.
President Hugo Chávez's aggressive stance against the media in Venezuela has been characterized as "totalitarian and dictatorial" by the Inter American Press Association, which considers freedom of expression under threat in the South American country.
On Sunday, Jan. 15, drug users attacked photojournalists who were reporting in a central area of São Paulo, Brazil, known as "Crackland," reported the website Band News.
A Mexican photojournalist was beaten and arrested by police in the border city of Ciudad Juárez after the police were photographed arresting an indigent person, according to the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET in Spanish).
A Brazilian journalist was beaten and his memory card stolen by alleged plainclothes police while covering the repression of a student protest in the city of Teresina, capital of the state of Piauí in the evening of Jan. 10, reported the website O Dia.
On Jan. 6, Brazilian police accused a 16-year-old boy of allegedly killing journalist Laércio de Souza in Salvador, Bahia, reported Correio 24 horas.
The same day that the International Press Institute (IPI) named Mexico the world's most dangerous country to practice journalism, an armed gang killed journalist Raúl Régulo Garza Quirino in the border state of Nuevo León on Jan. 6, reported Proceso.