Americas

More than two weeks after earthquake that devastated Haiti, several community radio stations are still off the air. In the western and southeastern parts of the country, at least 16 stations are facing serious problems that have suspended their broadcasts, Sony Esteus, executive director of SAKS, a local organization of community radio stations, told CPJ. The earthquake…

Working in an atmosphere of great confusion and grief, our sources in Haiti are compiling preliminary lists of media casualties, documenting damages to news facilities, and examining the challenges ahead. SOS Journalistes, a press advocacy group led by the prominent Haitian journalist Guyler Delva, reports that at least 11 journalists died in the January 12…

Michele Montas, the Haitian journalist and former spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, has experienced a harrowing time in aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. “Haiti appears to be on doomsday,” said Montas, who said she has been shaken by the number of dead and wounded on the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Her own…

The Association of Haitian Journalists has recorded at least three media fatalities and one seriously wounded journalist as a preliminary toll from the earthquake that struck the Caribbean island on January 12. In an interview with CPJ from Port-au-Prince, AJH Secretary General Jacques Desrosiers identified the early victims as Wanel Fils, a reporter with Radio…

The sale of private television station Telenica Channel 8, one of Nicaragua’s most popular broadcasters, has sparked immediate controversy. Carlos Briceño, left, who previously owned the station, recently confirmed that he had sold the station but said that a confidential contract has forbid him from revealing the name of the buyers or the figures of the…

Signal FM is the only Haitian radio station to continuously broadcast during and after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake that ravaged the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas on January 12. Signal’s online news service kept operating as well. The station’s equipment, located in Petionville (east of Port-au-Prince) remained in service, withstanding, remarkably, tremors to the building…

New York, January 19, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Mexican authorities today to thoroughly investigate the killing of José Luis Romero, a Mexican crime reporter who had been abducted on December 30. Romero, at left, was found dead on Saturday near the city of Los Mochis, in the state of Sinaloa, according to local…

The scenes from Port-au-Prince are horrifying, and the needs are staggering. There is no food, no water, no place to bury the dead. And there is also no information. According to CPJ’s Senior Americas Program Coordinator Carlos Lauria, who spoke with Haitian journalist Guylar Delva today, only a handful of Creole-language radio stations are operating. Journalists are unable to work…

At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, prominent Haitian journalist Joseph Guyler Delva, 43, was driving his car on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Delva, the country’s leading press freedom advocate, was on his way to pick-up his 7-year-old daughter from school when he heard a loud bang. “I thought I was hit by a truck,” he said. After…