Americas
2010
Columbia J-students learn the price of reporting in Iran
The two venues for the launch of Attacks on the Press in New York couldn’t have been more different. On Tuesday morning I was joined by Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari, and CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz in the hushed auditorium of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at United Nations headquarters. The event was so well attended…
Haiti’s online news agencies barely functioning
The three main online news agencies in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, are struggling in the aftermath of the quake. Clarens Renois, the founding director of Haiti Press Network, addressed the outlet’s future frankly: “In three months, I will close the agency,” he said.
Colombian government tells CPJ it ‘rejects’ illegal spying
Shortly after arriving in Bogotá to launch Attacks on the Press, I realized the Colombian government was well aware of our concerns about illegal espionage against the media. Top government officials, including President Alvaro Uribe Vélez, had confirmed meetings with a delegation from CPJ and the local press freedom group Foundation for Freedom of the…
At U.N, Bahari and CPJ urge global attention
Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari helped us launch Attacks on the Press at the United Nations in New York today. Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian citizen, was labeled an enemy of the Iranian regime and cruelly imprisoned for 118 days last year in Tehran. His very presence today, CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney noted, was testament to the…
CPJ support helps an injured Haitian reporter
His collarbone severely fractured in the January 12 earthquake, Haitian journalist Yves Adler Boissonniere needed considerable medical attention—care that he could not get in his devastated country. With US$40 and a few gourdes (Haiti’s currency) in his pocket, Boissonniere decided in late January to cross the border to the Dominican Republic in hopes of getting…
Provisional media death toll rising in Haiti
A month after the January 12 earthquake, the death toll for journalists has risen to 26, with two others injured, according to a new provisional tally released by media groups in Haiti. Under the umbrella of International Media Support, a joint mission of press groups (including the Association of Haitian Journalists, SOS Journalistes, and the…
‘Suddenly,’ Chávez is on the radio (yet again)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías has used cadenas—nationwide radio and television addresses that preempt programming on all stations—to challenge the private media’s news coverage and amplify the government’s voice. In his radio and TV call-in program, “Aló, Presidente” (Hello, President), Chávez often lambastes critics in the media and the political opposition.
Mexican journalist said things ‘very hard’ just before murder
Over the weekend I spent several hours with two prominent journalists in Chilpancingo, Mexico, wondering who murdered their colleague Jorge Ochoa Martínez on January 29, and hearing about some of the seemingly unbearable pressures on Mexican journalists. Ochoa was shot in the face as he was leaving a birthday party for a local politician in…
Newspapers cut staff and are unable to print in Haiti
The two Haitian dailies, Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, are still coping with the devastating effects of the January earthquake. Though these outlets continue to disseminate news via the Internet, it will take them some time to resume publishing in print.
Internews provides critical news to use in Haiti
Every evening, between 9 and 10 p.m., people in areas affected by the January 12 earthquake listen to the program “Nouvel pou nou Konnen” (News to Know). Huddled in tents or sitting in the open air, men and women cling to their transistor radios to get news on the latest decisions of the Haitian government…