Forty-five journalists and representatives from media organizations from 20 countries gathered Sept. 17-18, 2010, in Austin, Texas, for the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas. The Forum is organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and the Open Society Foundations' programs for Latin America and the media.
Media directors and journalists say they are skeptical of the the government’s newly announced protective measures against attacks from organized crime, EFE reports.
“Never let fear become an editor,” said Peruvian Gustavo Gorriti at the award ceremony for the Cemex+FNPI New Journalism Prize in Monterrey, Mexico. The reporter, honored for his outstanding track record of investigative coverage, asked his fellow journalists to not let “intimidation undermine your work,” La Jornada and Milenio report.
In a meeting with representatives of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexico's President Felipe Calderón vowed to put in place by October a plan to protect journalists, similar to one in Colombia, and to launch legal reforms that would make killings of journalists a federal crime, reported the Associated Press and IAPA.
Almost two years after crossing the border from Mexico, journalist Jorge Luis Aguirre was granted asylum in the United States, reported La Jornada. The editor of the news site LaPolaka.com had gone into exile after receiving threats when he went to the funeral of slain reporter Armando Rodríguez in Ciudad Juárez. At the time, Aguirre was warned that he was next.
Journalist associations and Mexican authorities from Chihuahua, a state along the border with the United States that is one of the most violent zones in the world for journalists because of drug trafficking-related violence, signed on Sept. 6 the first safety protocol for journalists who cover high-risk news, according to Masnoticias and Tiempo.
The outside of the newspaper Noroeste in the city of Mazatlán was attacked at dawn by an organized crime group just hours after threatening calls were made to the publication, reported the agency DPA and Noroeste.
The Mexican press has become a target for drug-related violence, prompting a company to promote its bullet-proof vests as a way of protecting members of the media, according to Clarín and news agencies.
Frank La Rue and Catalinta Botero, special rapporteurs for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, respectively, for freedom of expression, gave their preliminary observations from their official mission to Mexico, warning that the situation in the country was grave, reported BBC Mundo and El Universal.
As Mexican journalists are finalizing the details of their protest this Saturday against violence and threats against the country’s media workers, President Felipe Calderón met with media owners and editors to pledge federal government support, El Universal and La Jornada report.
Robert Cox, the London-born journalist who covered Argentina’s Dirty War when other newspapers wouldn’t, has been made an “Illustrious Citizen of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires,” The Guardian reports. He received the award when visiting the city for the release of the Spanish-language edition of his son’s memoir on the experience.
Journalists, public officials, and police chiefs in the northern border state of Chihuahua, one of the areas most effected by drug violence in recent years, are planning to create the country’s first "security protocol for journalists that cover risky areas," Devenir and Ahoramismo report.