One week after the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreón became the target of three armed attacks in a week, its editorial director Javier Garza considers that the protection measures employed to safeguard media outlets and journalists, which include the deployment of police forces, should be re-evaluated since they can be counterproductive.
Jaime Guadalupe Domínguez, the director of a news site in the Mexican city of Ojinaga -- in the Northern state of Chihuahua -- was killed in the afternoon of March 3 by a group of armed men, reported the newspaper Diario de Chihuahua.
The building of the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreón was once again the target of another armed attack, making it the third in just a week, reported the Associated Press.
Two international journalism organizations visited Mexico to evaluate the government's measures to protect journalists and the media's own safety strategies when reporting in the country's most dangerous regions, according to a statement from the International Press Institute and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA).
A Mexican criminal organization is offering a reward for information about the administrator of a Facebook page and Twitter account, who over the last year has been reporting on violent crime in the state of Tamaulipas, one of the areas most affected by the country’s drug war, according to the magazine Proceso.
The São Paulo State Union of Professional Journalists denounced threats journalists received and other obstacles they faced while reporting in the interior of the state at the beginning of 2013, according to a statement form the organization on Feb. 13.
An exhaustive report from the Committee to Protect Journalists on the situation for journalists around the world placed Brazil and Ecuador among the top ten countries where press freedom suffered the most during 2012, and named Mexico as the country with the most missing journalists in the world.
During the forum "Journalists: harm, memory and healing" on Feb. 8, in Bogota, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos recognized the work of renowned journalist Hollman Morris. For the journalist, who former-president Álvaro Uribe accused of being allied with the FARC and had been followed by state intelligence agents, the acknowledgement could mark an positive turn in his relationship with the government.
The Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP in Spanish) celebrated the Day of the Journalist in Colombia on Saturday, Feb. 9, with the release of its 2012 report on the state of press freedom in Colombia. Click here to read the full report (in Spanish).
The Brazilian newspaper Diario da Região reported that city councilman Cesar Gelsi threatened a political reporter for the publication, Rodrigo Lima. The threats followed articles the journalist published calling Gelsi "the living-dead of politics" and included him in a list of officials charged with failing to pay backed taxes.