Americas

In the long-standing battle for journalistic freedom, the victor is the Bush Administration and its embedded media program in Iraq. Journalists embedded with American troops emphasised military successes more often than they covered the invasion’s consequences for Iraqi citizens. These findings are from a study by sociologist Andrew M Lindner, writing in the spring issue of the American

The Coahuila State Congress in Mexico has approved amendments classifying the killing of people in retaliation for their journalism as a particularly serious crime, comparable to aggravated homicide. This means that such killings will now be considered very serious and those responsible will face sentences of up to 60 years in prison, ARTICLE 19 has reported. In order to implement the mechanisms...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the murder of Jorge Mérida Pérez, a correspondent in Quetzatenango province for the national Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre. Mérida was shot to death in his home on Saturday afternoon. CPJ called on the Guatemalan authorities to begin an immediate, thorough investigation into this brutal killing. While a motive has yet to be confirmed, early...

Spanish journalist Ricardo Ortega was shot dead by foreign soldiers in Haiti in 2004, according to a court order from the Caribbean country, the contents of which were made public by Ortega's family on Friday, Reuters has reported. Ortega died while covering a demonstration pitting supporters and detractors of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in March. Originally Spanish media reported that...

A young Cuban dissident has been given a prestigious Spanish journalism award for using a blog to overcome the limits to free expression in her country, says a BBC News report. Yoani Sanchez has received the Ortega y Gasset Prize in digital journalism for her blog, called Generation Y. Cuban authorities did not approve Yoani Sanchez's request to travel to Madrid for the award ceremony. Cuban...

The New York Times confirmed Wednesday that it had made a limited but unspecified number of involuntary cuts to its newsroom staff in order to meet its goal of reducing head count there by 100, says an Associated Press (AP) report. Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a memo to staff that while the "overwhelming majority" of cuts came from volunteers accepting buyout offers, the paper had to make...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at allegations that federal police agents assaulted three reporters working in Culiacán, the capital of the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. At approximately 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, three reporters working for the newspaper El Debate went to report on a roadside checkpoint being mounted by federal police agents about one block from...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemns a decision by Chinese authorities to place a journalist known by the name of Naranbilig under house arrest for a year after holding him for 20 days in Inner Mongolia. It also condemned the May 3 arrest of writer Zhou Yuanzhi, who may now be charged with “inciting subversion of state authority” as many other Chinese intellectuals and dissidents have...

A committee to protect editorial integrity at the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday it will be more active in the search of a new managing editor for the paper after being blindsided by the resignation of Marcus Brauchli, according to a Reuters report. The committee, whose duties include the hiring and firing of top Journal editors, learned of Brauchli's departure after the fact, which it said...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the shooting of a Mexican journalist’s house in the southern state of Oaxaca, in what appears to have been a targeted attack, on April 18. The day before the shooting, Melchor López, general director of Radio Mixteca (88.7 FM), a commercial station based in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, said he was followed by white Jeep Liberty truck after...