Americas

2018

  
Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, right, talks to the press in Brasília on November 27. Journalists in Brazil say they expect the hostile climate experienced during the election to continue as Bolsonaro takes office. (AFP/Evaristo Sa)

Ahead of inauguration day, Brazilian media braces for Bolsonaro

Long before one of their photographers was harassed on election night in Brazil, the editors at Fortaleza newspaper O Povo were meeting with their readers and staff to discuss the increasingly polarized environment and how to deal with it.

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Journalists light candles to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, in March. Crime and politics are dangerous beats for Mexico's journalists. (Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

In Mexico, ‘narcopolitics’ is a deadly mix for journalists covering crime and politics

It was 3 p.m. on January 13 when Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez stopped at a traffic light in Nuevo Laredo, in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Two men approached the car of the well-known newspaper columnist, opened the driver’s door, and stabbed him more than 20 times in front of his family.

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The near deserted newsroom of Caracas daily El Nacional, pictured in October. Like many Venezuelan outlets, several of its journalists are in exile to escape legal action and the deepening economic crisis. (AFP/Federico Parra)

Lawsuits and economic crisis drive Venezuela’s journalists into exile

When Ewald Scharfenberg, the founding editor of the Venezuelan investigative news website Armando.Info, holds editorial meetings, he pulls out his mobile phone. That’s because most of his reporters are in Venezuela while Scharfenberg lives and works in neighboring Colombia.

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An ICE agent monitors a protest outside the department's office in San Francisco in June over President Trump's immigration policy. Journalists who fled threats in their home countries are being held in prolonged ICE detention while authorities review their asylum requests. (Getty Images North America/AFP/Justin Sullivan)

Journalists fleeing threats at home trapped in ICE detention over US asylum seeker policy

When Cuban police escorted Serafín Morán Santiago on to a plane to Guyana in 2016, they warned the journalist he could be jailed for 15 years if he tried to return. Authorities there had already detained and tortured him for his reporting. But when he was attacked in Guyana and then threatened in Mexico, Morán…

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A member of the Capital Gazette takes part in a candlelight vigil near the newspaper's office on June 29. Several local newsrooms are reassessing security after the deadly attack. (Reuters/Leah Millis)

Panic buttons, cameras, and a gun under the desk: Local newsrooms update security in wake of Capital Gazette attack

The Capital Gazette shootings in Annapolis in June, in which a gunman killed five staff, forced many newsrooms across the U.S. to reassess the security of their offices. While journalists acknowledged that threats come with the job, the shooting comes in a year of increased hostility toward the press, including pipe bombs being sent care…

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A man at a news kiosk in Brasilia on October 8 reads about the first round of Brazil's elections. CPJ and other rights groups are calling on candidates to denounce threats being made toward the press. (AFP/Evaristo SA)

CPJ joins call for Brazilian presidential candidates to condemn threats against journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined five other rights organizations to call on Brazilian presidential candidates to denounce the threats and violence against journalists covering the electoral campaign, and urge their supports to stop harassing reporters.

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The path(s) to justice in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder

In an emotional address to Turkey’s parliament today, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a savage and premeditated act and demanded that Saudi officials be brought to Turkey to stand trial. Most of the information about the investigation that has emerged has come through leaks to the Turkish…

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Radio Yandê founder Renata Machado. Rádio Yandê is one of the few outlets in Brazil to tell the stories of the country's indigenous people on their own terms. (Alfredo Boc Boc)

How Brazil’s ‘ethno-communicators’ are helping indigenous people find their voice

The people who run Radio Yandê, a Brazilian digital portal dedicated to indigenous issues, have many words to define what they do, but even though the site has stories, video and audio, none of those definitions include the word journalist.

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CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon talks about global press freedom violations during a Press Behind Bars panel at the U.N. (Reuters)

CPJ’s Joel Simon speaks at Press Behind Bars panel

Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon addressed a panel event at the 73rd session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 28, 2018. The event highlighted global press freedom violations and the jailing of journalists in countries around the world, with a specific focus on cases in Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh,…

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Live Stream – Press Behind Bars: Undermining Justice and Democracy

Event scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. EDT on Friday, September 28, 2018. Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon, Reuters President and CPJ board member Stephen J. Adler, and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who represents the imprisoned Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, speak on a panel at the 73rd…

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2018