State-Sanctioned Freedom of Expression: Russia a...
Guest post by Ariana Szepesi-ColmenaresRussia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has just returned from a three-day trip to Latin America, where he met with government officials from Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia. This tour comes only a month after the visit of Sergei Shoigu, Russia... |
The Media is Silenced in Venezuela and Ecuador
Guest post by Ariana Szepesi-ColmenaresIn Ecuador, 254 arbitrary sanctions were made against the press in 2014: that’s a 46 percent increase since 2013, according to data produced by the Ecuadoran organization Fundamedios. For January and February 2015 alone, 46 new direct attacks have challeng... |
Caribbean Freedom of Information
Aylair Livingstone is an attorney and creator of the Caribbean Freedom of Information group. you can find her full presentation for the World Bank, “Freedom of Information in the Caribbean: 20 Years and Beyond,” here: WORLD BANK_PPT_FOI_FEB_2015The Caribbean has caught up with the gl... |
Media Pluralism Key For a Healthy Media Environm...
Guest post by Silvia Chocarro Marcesse There is no question media pluralism and diversity are crucial for strong democracies. The pressing question is how to guarantee it. According to a group of Latin American experts that met in Washington, DC, the media environment in the region needs some regula... |
Keeping Score on Censorship: #JeSuisCharlie in L...
Guest post by Ariana Szepesi-Colmenares#JeSuisCharlie In January 2015, the targeted assassination of French cartoonists working for the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo in Paris moved and alarmed the international community. Voices have been silenced. Censorship 1 – Pencils 0. #YoSoyRayma In Se... |
Soft Censorship in Argentina
In Argentina, there are plenty of news outlets that freely criticize and question the government, which many would argue is a sign of a healthy media environment. According to Freedom House’s 2014 figures for Freedom of the Press, however, Argentina only ranks as “partly free.” T... |
Linguistic Diversity in Online Media
When we think of the digital divide, we usually think of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ However, this is just one component of the problem. Closing the digital divide also requires us to think about the content of the Internet. According to a July 2014 article from the Internet Society, ... |
Information becoming toughest commodity to get i...
With their country’s economy in crisis, Venezuelans are facing shortages of just about everything – milk, flour, toilet paper, cooking oil–and information. The Venezuelan government’s “communications hegemony is silencing the media and journalists,” said Sergio Dahbar, the former editor ... |
The Attraction of Plan “B”
As a close follower of international media issues and of Latin America, I expected to hear a good deal about the problems media are facing in some countries of the region at the conference on Latin America that the Development Bank of Latin America, the Organization of American States, and the Inter... |
Uruguay’s Media Reform Success Story
On the eve of his appointment as the new Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Uruguayan lawyer, journalist and director of CAinfo, Edison Lanza, visited CIMA to discuss the success of Uruguay’s media reform efforts in a region plagued by li... |