Americas

Masked gunman threw a grenade at Mexican TV broadcaster Televisa on Wednesday and shot up the building. We released an alert yesterday condemning the attack and calling for the federalization of laws for crimes against the press in Mexico.

Yesterday’s attack on Mexican TV network Televisa is making headlines in the world press today. The Washington Post has coverage of masked gunman threw a grenade at the TV station, allegedly in retaliation for reporting on drug trafficking. The article quotes CPJ’s Carlos Lauria, who said that the “attack in Monterrey is another example of how…

Making news today is yesterday’s release of our year-end analysis of the deadliest countries for journalists. The report found that 41 journalists were killed for their work in 2008, with Iraq named the most deadly for the sixth straight year. The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse all ran stories outlining the report’s findings yesterday. Today the story is receiving widespread coverage in both the…

Time.com’s “China Blog” has a post today titled “A Dark Time for Reporters in China” that outlines some recent cases of harassment and violence against journalists working in the country and quotes our statistics of journalists imprisoned for their work.

Last month, veteran crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was gunned down in Ciudad Juárez on the Texas border, sparking another round of hand-wringing about the relentless violence that is suffocating critical journalism in Mexico. Rodríguez’s brutal murder sparked coverage in the U.S. media as well, including pieces in The Washington Post and NPR.

Today there is more coverage of our annual census of imprisoned journalists, a list of 125 journalists in jail, 56 of whom are online journalists, released yesterday.

From his cell in the maximum security Agüica Prison in western Matanzas province, jailed Cuban journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez has written us a letter to accept CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. In his letter, Maseda Gutiérrez speaks out “for all those who suffer the horror that characterizes despotic and oligarchic government models.” He will be honored on Tuesday. The…

Various news outlets had coverage over the weekend of press freedom in Russian in light of last week’s brutal assault on Mikhail Beketov, a Moscow newspaper editor who still remains comatose in a local hospital. The Chicago Tribune as well as the UK-based newspapers The Guardian and The Sunday Herald are running stories about the dangers…

CPJ’s 2008 International Press Freedom awardees, who were officially announced yesterday at a press conference in Washington, are making news today–including editor Andrew Mwenda, who was concurrently issued an arrest warrant in his home country of Uganda.

CPJ’s Monica Campbell is interviewed today on NPR’s “People and Places” about the recent murder of crime reporter Armando Rodriguez and the worsening situation for Mexican journalists. She is joined by journalist Arturo Chacon.Visit NPR.org to listen to the report.