The Constitution and Justice Committee of the Brazilian Senate on Wednesday, March 14, approved a bill that would regulate the right of reply in the news media, reported the newspaper O Globo.
The Bolivian government approved a decree requiring media owners to guarantee transportation at night for journalists and other press workers, reported radio station FM Bolivia. The door-to-door transport is supposed to run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Milton Coleman, president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and an editor of The Washington Post, visited Honduras on Tuesday, Feb. 28, to talk with President Porfirio Lobo about a proposed bill to regulate the Honduran media, reported Proceso.
The Dominican Journalism Guild (CDP in Spanish) proposed mandatory membership for journalists and penalizing journalists without university degrees with two years of prison and a fine of roughly $25,700, reported the newspapers El Nuevo Diario and Diario Libre.
A Mexican congressman has proposed a law to regulate news coverage about the arrests of organized crime suspects, according to the official state news agency Notimex.
The Bolivian government announced that it will not move forward with a new press law but that it does intend to "bring the work of the press and journalism into line with the new Constitution," reported the television channel Eju TV.
For the third time in the past year, the Associated Press (AP) has updated its social media guidelines, this time to deal with correcting erroneous tweets and deleting tweets, as well as proper procedure for designating a re-tweet, according to a press release from the news agency.
In protest of two Congressional bills that critics contend amount to censorship of the Internet, Wikipedia announced that it will go dark on Wednesday Jan. 18, reported The New York Times.
On Jan. 10, Bahia became the first Brazilian state to establish a Social Communication Council characterized as a "consultative and deliberative" body charged with creating a state communication plan, reported the newspaper A Tarde.
Connecticut's Journal Register newspaper company has experienced its second round of plagiarism accusations in less then three months, reported Poynter. On Tuesday, Jan. 10, editor Matt DeRienzo revealed that a Jan. 5 front-page sports story in the Fairfield Minuteman plagiarized verbatim articles from two competing newspapers.
The Online News Association (ONA) announced that it is joining mounting opposition to the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), arguing that the bill "would inappropriately shut down websites, disrupt the free flow of legitimate information and limit Americans from fully exercising their First Amendment rights," not to mention put at risk the future of social media and user-generated content, ONA said in a letter from its president dated Thursday, Jan. 5.
The Brazilian Senate recently bucked a 2009 ruling by the South American country's Supreme Court when it approved a bill reestablishing the requirement that all practicing journalists have an advanced degree.