Americas

The last three years have been incredibly dangerous for media working in Mexico. An international coalition of press freedom organisations' report "Press Freedom: Shadow of Impunity and Violence" highlights the range of risks that they face with attacks against journalists continuing to increase at alarming rates. "Mexico has been one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in recent years

Gannett Co Inc plans to eliminate 1,000 positions from its local newspapers around the US because of declining advertising and circulation revenue, and may cut more if those conditions persist, says a Reuters report. The largest US newspaper publisher said the cuts equal about 3 per cent of the positions in its Community Publishing unit, according to a memo obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the FBI to release more information about the procedures they used in 2004 to obtain reporters' telephone records while they were stationed at the New York Times and the Washington Post bureaus in Indonesia. Paris-based RSF welcomed Thursday the apology the FBI made to the newspapers' editors for improperly using the so-called "exigent letters" to obtain...

The US government's attempts to flout news-gathering privilege hit another road-block on August 11 when a court denied its request to block an amicus curiae brief signed by numerous news organisations in support of CBS in its effort to quash a government subpoena. The case concerns an interview with US Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich by Scott Pelley, aired on March 18, 2007 on "60 Minutes". Wuterich...

There was little violence directed against the press during the August 10 recall referendum on the mandates of Bolivian President Evo Morales and eight regional governors, although there was a series of physical attacks on journalists during the preceding days. "We are relieved by the relative calm in which the voting took place, especially as the political tension had led us to fear the worst,"...

With new allegations of the beating of a journalist by soldiers, the Mexican military must develop procedures to ensure that the press can cover its operations, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has insisted. Mexican reporter Jorge Inzunza Bustillos was harassed and beaten by members of the Mexican army while covering a shooting in the western city of Culiacán on Monday...

Unidentified individuals shot and killed Dominican journalist Normando García Thursday evening in the city of Santiago, 102 miles (163 km) north of the capital, Santo Domingo. The Nw York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating whether García's murder is linked to his journalistic work. At around 6:40 p.m., García, a cameraman for the daily news program "Detrás de la Noticia"...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is sorry for improperly obtaining the telephone records of US. newspaper reporters working in Indonesia. FBI Director Robert Mueller apologised Friday to New York Times editor Bill Keller and Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr for the 2004 incidents, in which agents used so-called national security letters to obtain the reporters' phone records, the Times...

Only about 13 percent of the Washington daily newspaper press corps are journalists of color, according to a study on diversity by UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. There were slightly more journalists of colour covering the US capital in 2008 than there were four years earlier when UNITY conducted its...

One year after the murder of US journalist Chauncey Bailey, investigation into the incident has not made any progress. Instead, the case has become more complicated as new information surrounding the motives for Bailey's murder has come to light. Evidence, some recorded by the police and some uncovered by investigative reporters, points at someone other than the currently accused defendant as a...