Americas
2009
Honduran radio station goes online after suspension
Early Monday morning, military and police personnel forcefully shut down the Tegucigalpa-based Radio Globo under a decree by the de facto government that suspends civil liberties, CPJ reported. Today, Honduran and international media outlets said the radio station was being broadcast online.
An Iraqi journalist in America: Finally … Red Lobster
Most of the Iraqi refugees who recently arrived in America were shocked by the economic situation here. I was prepared. I knew about the difficulties of finding a job in America, and I knew I could count on assistance from the American government through my status as a journalist with The New York Times. Even…
Six face murder charges in French filmmaker’s slaying
Six men—five members of a Salvadoran street gang and a police agent—face murder charges in the death of French filmmaker Christian Gregorio Poveda Ruiz, El Salvador’s attorney general’s office said. Poveda, whose new documentary on a violent Salvadoran gang was scheduled for wide release at the end of this month, was gunned down on September…
To blog in Cuba: defying hazards, enjoying freedom
I share with my fellow Cuban independent journalists the drunkenness of writing freely under a totalitarian dictatorship; of experiencing the catharsis of denouncing the regime’s violations; of feeling useful to my people knowing that, in the long run, what I write will contribute to a better future.
The alternative Cuban blogosphere
At the end of the 1990s, Cuban dissidents sought out different media to disseminate the reality of the island. Reports on violations by a government that proclaims itself a human rights’ defender begin to circulate around the world, damaging the image that the socialist state wants to project to the rest of the world. This…
Walter Cronkite: ‘He still believed in it all’
The projected image of Walter Cronkite smiled out at a crowd of hundreds of journalists, family, and friends at a memorial in Manhattan today. From a lectern beneath this image, President Barack Obama spoke about the late CBS anchor’s steadfast professionalism, a quality never more needed than today, in the midst of severe political and…
Lee and Ling: ‘Instinctively, we ran.’
Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested by North Korean police on March 17 for allegedly entering the country illegally and carrying out “hostile acts.” In June, they were sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor. Now back in the U.S. after receiving a pardon, the two are telling their story on Current.com,…
Pentagon questions profiling of reporters in Afghanistan
No doubt Stars and Stripes is a Pentagon-authorized newspaper. But no one should doubt the daily’s editorial independence from the Defense Department. This week Stars and Stripes beat the rest of the press pack in breaking a story that not only made Defense Department officials uncomfortable, but that compelled veteran Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman to…
Second investigator on murder case killed in Mexico
For the second time in less than a month, the lead federal investigator in the case of a journalist murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, has been shot and killed in the streets of that city, according to news accounts. The second investigator, Pablo Pasillas Fong, was shot 13 times on August 26, according to the…
Hopeless, a sister visits her imprisoned brother in Havana
Graciela González-Degard is 72 years old. She has salt-and-pepper hair, long elegant hands, soft manners reminiscent of another era, and a bad knee that she blames on age. Once a Catholic nun, Graciela moved to the United States from Havana in the 1960s and now lives in New York with her husband. She teaches children…