Features & Analysis
2018
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.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 16, 2018
Journalist jailed over unpaid fines Hakan Gülseven, a journalist who used to work for the pro-opposition (CHP) daily Yurt, was imprisoned on December 20 after failing to pay 31,500 Turkish lira (US$5,974) in three unpaid fines over charges of insult, the news website Artı Gerçek reported.
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.
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.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 6, 2018
Anti-state charges for 5 journalists Five journalists from the opposition daily Sözcü were indicted for “willingly and knowingly helping a [terrorist] organization without being in its hierarchical structure,” BBC Turkey reported on December 10. Chief editor Metin Yılmaz, online chief editor Mustafa Çetin, online news coordinator Yücel Arı, and columnists Emin Çölaşan and Necati Doğru…
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…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of December 2
Journalists in court A Diyarbakır Court on December 5 ordered Rojhat Doğru, a journalist formerly with the northern Iraq outlet Gali Kurdistan TV, to be detained pending investigation, the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya Agency reported. According to the report, Doğru was taken into custody in Istanbul on the accusation of “being a member of a [terrorist] organization,”…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week beginning November 25, 2018
Court upholds Özgür Gündem sentences A local appeals court in Istanbul on November 29 upheld the earlier prison sentences handed to five of the participants of a solidarity campaign with the daily Özgür Gündem, the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya Agency reported.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of November 8, 2018
Court sentences former Zaman journalist A court in Uşak on November 14 convicted Ali Ünal, a former columnist for the shuttered daily Zaman, of “founding and leading an armed terrorist organization” and sentenced him to 19 years and six months in prison, the news website Diken reported. The court acquitted the journalist of coup-related charges,…
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…