Americas

  
CPJ
Visitors look at an exhibit displaying the bloodstained clothes of the Jesuit priests murdered by the Salvadoran military in 1989. (AP/Luis Romero)

Solidarity, a key to security, eludes Salvadoran press

No other journalists are remembered quite like this. Visitors looking through the glass display at the Monsignor Romero Center & Martyrs Museum in San Salvador see the pajamas and other clothes that three Jesuit university priests were wearing when they were shot down by automatic rifle fire. A series of clear containers are filled with…

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CPJ
Sebastian Junger, left, introduces fellow journalist Jeffrey Gettleman at the Half King. (Nicole Schilit)

At CPJ Debrief, Gettleman cites Somalia danger, reward

Jeffrey Gettleman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent, says he travels with “a small militia” whenever he reports from Somalia, the East African country afflicted by armed insurgency, poverty, and hunger. As intrusive as the security detail might be, he feels far more fortunate than the local reporters who face sustained and often deadly…

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Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patiño said 'ignorance' was behind international criticism of press freedom conditions in Ecuador. (AP/Dolores Ochoa)

Nations urge Ecuador to guarantee freedom of expression

Stressing concerns of human rights groups about the deterioration of press conditions under the administration of President Rafael Correa, 17 members of the United Nations submitted recommendations to Ecuador on freedom of expression issues before the U.N. Human Rights Council this week. While Ecuador tried to pass off the criticism as resulting from ignorance, the…

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Investigators photograph graffiti implicating the Zeta cartel near where 49 corpses were found on the road near Monterrey, Mexico, on May 13. (AFP/Julio Cesar Aguilar)

El Mañana cedes battle to report on Mexican violence

They would tell you that the killers haven’t let them cover real news for several years–if you call news serious information that’s important to the public, like why the police didn’t investigate so many murders or kidnappings or extortions. Or why drugs were sold so openly. Or that three former governors are being investigated for…

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Journalists covering the Syrian uprising have been targeted with government surveillance, hacking, and malware. (AP/Bassem Tellawi)

Don’t get your sources in Syria killed

Because foreign journalists have been virtually banned from Syria during the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, news coverage has relied heavily on citizen journalists and international reporters working with sources inside the country. Syrians who communicate with foreign news media run the risk of being threatened, detained, tortured, or even killed.

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CPJ calls for release of jailed reporters in Central Asia

World leaders must hold Central Asian regimes responsible for denying global access to information by throwing critical reporters behind bars, CPJ Eurasia researcher Muzaffar Suleymanov told the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe  at a briefing Tuesday on political prisoners in Central Asia.

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Audio slideshow: Supporting family of Anton Hammerl

Freelance photographer Anton Hammerl was killed in Libya on April 5, 2011. Friends of Hammerl are holding an auction May 15 to raise funds for his three children. James Foley elaborates.

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CPJ
Photographers take cover behind a barricade during a protest in Egypt last year. Journalists are often forced to take deadly risks when working in war zones, usually with limited training and no insurance. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)

Should J-School grads just get up and go overseas?

The guidance is hardly clear. At a Columbia University event last week pegged to the release of the new CPJ Journalist Security Guide, one journalism student said he and his classmates are getting contradictory advice. Many J-school professors, he said, have encouraged him and others to just get up, go overseas, and try to make…

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CPJ
Panelists at the launch of the new CPJ Journalist Security Guide at Columbia University. (CPJ/Nicole Schilit)

In digital security, knowledge and simplicity are keys

Governments and criminal organizations are stepping up digital surveillance of journalists, but the press is not keeping pace in meeting the challenge, a panel of experts said Wednesday at an event marking the launch of the CPJ Journalist Security Guide. Reporters are using unsecure consumer electronic products for sensitive tasks such as note-taking and source…

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Iran has invested in technology with the explicit intent of restricting Internet access. (Reuters/Caren Firouz)

Most censored nations each distort the Net in own way

One big reason for the Internet’s success is its role as a universal standard, interoperable across the world. The data packets that leave your computer in Botswana are the same as those which arrive in Barbados. The same is increasingly true of modern mobile networks. Standards are converging: You can use your phone, access an…

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