A Panamericana Television crew was attacked by a group of thirty people while they covered a protest against a Lima law firm, headed by Orellana Rengifo, with alleged links to organized crime, La República reports. Cameraman Juan Carlos Vera’s right eye was injured by a rock and journalist Renzo Santana had multiple facial wounds, El Comercio explains.
The morning of Jan. 24, a helicopter for TV Globo was shot at three times as it attempted to film images of a police operation in a favela, or shanty town, in northern Río de Janeiro, reported Bom Dia Brasil. The shots to the base, center and tail of the aircraft forced the pilot to make an emergency landing at a nearby airport.
The house of Orley Antunes, editor of the Brazilian newspaper Morretes Notícia, was was the target of a bomb attack on Jan. 17 in the town of Morretes in the southern coastal state of Paraná, reported that same newspaper.
Rosío Flores, a journalist for the newspaper El Diario, was beaten by employees of the city council in El Alto, in western Bolivia, El Diario reported.
A T.V. crew for Milenio Televisión was attacked and restrained by a mob while working on an investigative report outside the ranch of the leader of an electricians union, in the town of Tetepango, north of Mexico City, reported local media.
In 2010, the Mexican media faced a spate of shootings, bombings, and kidnappings, but the new year has inaugurated a more subtle, but nonetheless effective, type of attack on the press: criminals and political groups stealing the identity of media companies to intimidate and spread false information, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) reports.
The newspaper Novo Jornal reports that its journalists were not allowed to leave the offices of businessman Augusto Caldar Targino, ex director of the Rio Grande do Norte’s consumer protection agency, while he threatened and berated them. (Listen to a recording of the incident in Portuguese here.)
Honduran prosecutors are pursuing a complaint by a journalist and photographer from La Prensa newspaper who were assaulted and kicked out of a public building while covering a teacher protest in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in the county.
Three managers of the Brazilian soccer team Palmeiras attacked news photographer Thiago Vieira, of the newspaper Agora (owned by media company Folha), because they felt "offended" by comments sent out via Twitter, reported Folha.com.
Guatemalan journalists Jorge Toledo and Norman Rodas, of Channel 2 in the department, or state, of Quiché, had just finished covering a press conference of the Patriotic Party on Saturday, Jan. 15, when they were attacked by persons identified as members of the political party's communications team, reported Cerigua.
An investigation by internal affairs of Costa Rica's police force into the police beating of journalists at television channels 6 and 7 could last between two and six months and potentially could lead to officers being fired, reported Notimex and DPA.
After a bomb was thrown at the offices of Channel 9 in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, the Paraguayan Journalists’ Union (SPP) has said last week’s attack is diverting attention from “unjustified firings, union persecution, black lists,” and violations of worker rights at the station. The union urged the authorities to investigate the station’s management.