Americas

  

Maynard Institute’s Martin G. Reynolds on challenges facing Black journalists and how US media needs to change

Martin G. Reynolds, a veteran journalist and editor, is co-executive director at the Emeryville, California-based Maynard Institute, which was established to help diversify newsrooms through training programs. A year after the Maynard Institute’s founding in 1977 — originally as the Institute for Journalism Education — people of color made up 4% of journalists nationwide, according…

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Medics transport a patient to Stamford Hospital on April 2, 2020, in Stamford, Connecticut. (John Moore/Getty Images North America via AFP)

Getty photographer John Moore on how covering Ebola prepared journalists for COVID-19

Getty Images photographer John Moore has covered crises all over the world, from the U.S. border with Mexico to political unrest in Pakistan. But the COVID-19 pandemic has found him capturing devastation closer to home: in Stamford, Connecticut, where he lives, and in the hard-hit suburbs of New York City.

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Map: Attacks on press freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic

Updated June 22, 2021 CPJ has documented numerous press freedom violations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, from legislation threatening to censor free speech to arrests of journalists providing the public with vital news about the virus. This map plots violations, verified by CPJ staff, across nearly every region of the world from early…

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In Colombia, a shipping container on wheels brings a roving reporting workshop to news deserts

Can the key to ending news blackouts in isolated areas of Colombia come from inside a shipping container? The Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) thinks so. In an experiment to turn community activists into reporters in regions that lack local news outlets, FLIP has converted a shipping container into a roving journalism classroom. For…

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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to the press in Biarritz, France, on August 26, 2019, during the annual G7 Summit. (AFP/Ludovic Marin)

UN Secretary General responds to #FreeThePress campaign call to action

In a letter this week to the partners of the 2020 #FreeThePress campaign, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres emphasized that freedom of the press and the safety of journalists remains a key priority for him, stressing that, “No democracy can function without press freedom, which is the cornerstone of trust between people and their institutions,…

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Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump hold signs during a rally to call for the reopening of California's economy after the lockdown closure, implemented to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, in Woodland Hills, California, on May 16, 2020. NY Times reporter Davey Alba recently told CPJ about her experiences covering coronavirus conspiracy theories and facing online harassment. (AFP/Mark Ralston)

NY Times reporter Davey Alba on covering COVID-19 conspiracy theories, facing online harassment

Over the course of Davey Alba’s career as a tech reporter, her beat has transformed from covering the latest gadgets and phones to investigating the creeping influence and massive power wielded by tech companies over peoples’ everyday lives. As the coronavirus pandemic has spread across the globe, Alba, who covers tech and disinformation at The…

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Griselda Triana, the wife of slain journalist Javier Valdez, attends his memorial service at a funeral parlor in Culiacan, In Sinaloa state, Mexico, on May 16, 2017. Triana wrote a letter calling for justice in his case on May 15, 2020, the third anniversary of his murder. (Reuters/Jesus Bustamante)

On third anniversary of his murder, Javier Valdez’s wife calls for justice in open letter

Today, on the third anniversary of the murder of her husband, Mexican reporter Javier Valdez Cárdenas, journalist Griselda Triana wrote an open letter calling for justice and describing the ordeal of her family in the wake of his killing. The letter was published in several Mexican news outlets and by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

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A 3D-printed WhatsApp logo is seen in front of displayed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) sign in this illustration taken March 19, 2020. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)

First Draft’s Aimee Rinehart on fact-checking coronavirus misinformation

While digital communication enables the public to receive critical information about the COVID-19 pandemic in real time, the same tools are enabling an “infodemic” of misinformation that “can hamper an effective public health response and create confusion and distrust,” according to the United Nations.

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A protester holds a national flag during a demonstration against President Daniel Ortega's government in Managua, Nicaragua, on February 25, 2020. YouTube has censored independent Nicaraguan news outlets after copyright complaints from Ortega-owned media. (Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas)

YouTube censors independent Nicaraguan news outlets after copyright complaints from Ortega-owned media

Miguel Mora, director of the independent Nicaraguan news outlet 100% Noticias, oversaw its move online after its television broadcast license was revoked by the government in April 2018. He and his colleagues transferred their archives onto two YouTube accounts and used them to continue documenting the government’s repressive response to escalating protests in the months…

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Colombian police officers are seen in Soacha, near Bogota, on March 31, 2020. CPJ recently joined a letter calling on the Colombian government to strengthen protections for journalists amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (AFP/Raul Arboleda)

CPJ joins letter calling on Colombia to strengthen protections for journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists on May 4 joined more than 100 civil society organizations in an open letter calling on Colombia’s National Protection Unit to adopt measures to ensure the safety of journalists and other human rights defenders under increased threat due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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