Americas

  
The Rocinha neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Such neighborhoods, or favelas, have been risky for reporters. (AP/Felipe Dana)

Bossa Nova’s home and Olympics host is risky for press

The jagged mountains ringing Rio de Janeiro descend to a temperate valley with two storied beaches on the Atlantic. Here is the city that gave the world a new, eclectic musical beat with the Bossa Nova, the South American jewel that will host the summer Olympic Games in 2016. Yet Rio has also been the…

Read More ›

Soldiers stand in front of the offices of a news outlet that was attacked early Tuesday morning. (AFP/Julio Cesar Aguilar)

Three Mexican news outlets targeted in one day

New York, July 11, 2012–Unknown assailants using explosives, grenades, and guns attacked three news outlets in northern Mexico on Tuesday, causing property damage but no injuries, according to news reports.

Read More ›

Álvaro Uribe speaks at a 2011 congressional hearing about his alleged responsibility in the wiretapping of political opponents and journalists. (AP/William Fernando Martinez)

Uribe’s angry tweets do more than antagonize

More than a year after he left office, Álvaro Uribe Vélez confessed that “it was not in him” to live as a former president. And in fact, having dominated Colombian politics for eight years, it has been impossible for Uribe to fade from the public eye since leaving office in August 2010. Instead of retiring…

Read More ›

Mexican journalist released after 24 hours in prison

Prominent Mexican journalist Sanjuana Martínez was arrested on July 5, 2012, in the state of Nuevo León under unclear circumstances related to a civil custody dispute, and was released from jail the following day, according to news reports. Martínez was detained by armed police, which is unusual in a civil case, the reports said.

Read More ›

Brazilian journalist who covered sports gunned down

New York, July 10, 2012–Brazilian authorities must investigate the murder of radio journalist Valério Luiz de Oliveira and apprehend the perpetrators, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Luiz was shot and killed on Thursday afternoon in the western city of Goiânia, according to news reports.

Read More ›

CPJ
Members of the press get their first look at the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Security zones have been established outside to ensure people's safety. (AP/Brian Blanco)

What to know about covering the conventions

If May’s NATO Summit in Chicago is any indication, journalists covering events outside the national political conventions in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., later this summer can expect that everyone–mainstream media, bloggers, citizen journalists, protesters, and bystanders–will have a camera of one kind or another. With the widespread proliferation of cellphone cameras, capable of recording…

Read More ›

CPJ concerned about arrest of Mexican journalist

New York, July 6, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the arrest of prominent Mexican journalist Sanjuana Martínez Thursday in Nuevo León under unclear circumstances related to a civil custody dispute. The judge who ordered the detention was the subject of critical reporting by Martínez in 2008.

Read More ›

Photographer gunned down in Ecuador

Bogotá, Colombia, July 3, 2012–Ecuadoran photographer Byron Baldeón was shot dead Sunday in front of his home in El Triunfo, about 60 kilometers (100 miles) north of the city of Guayaquil. The photographer had become a witness in a criminal case involving alleged police corruption, according to news reports. 

Read More ›

The New York Times takes on China’s censors

Well, that didn’t take long. Just days after The New York Times’ soft launch of its Chinese-language edition and accompanying microblog accounts, Berkeley-based China Digital Times website reports that the @nytchinese Sina Weibo feed is no longer accessible in China, along with two accounts hosted by Netease and Sohu. We couldn’t pull them up this…

Read More ›

Zeta reporter Sergio Haro in the film 'Reportero.' (Courtesy Quiet Pictures)

Film ‘Reportero’ features tenacious Mexican magazine

A week before Sunday’s crucial presidential elections in Mexico, CPJ participated on a panel with filmmaker Bernardo Ruíz and Mexican journalist Sergio Haro about the perilous conditions for journalists in that country, where CPJ research shows 48 journalists have been murdered or disappeared since outgoing President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006.

Read More ›