Silencing the Press: A Decade of Journalist Murders in Latin America
By Reporters Without Borders | 22 hours ago
A protester holds a poster featuring Regina Martínez, a Mexican journalist killed in 2012. The poster reads: “You don’t kill the truth by killing the journalist.” Image: CIMAC/ Creative Commons
Journalists’ investigations of political issues, corruption, and organized crime in small and medium-sized cities in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras account for 139 murders of media professionals 2011-2020, a study by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows. Half of these journalists had received threats related to their work.
In the framework of “In Danger: Analysis of Journalist Protection Programs in Latin America,” a UNESCO-supported project, RSF analyzed the major methods by which journalists were murdered in order to better understand the challenges that media protection programs must take into account. RSF based the study on information from its barometer, which reports major attacks on journalists worldwide.
In 2020, Latin America was the region with the greatest number of journalists killed for practicing their profession. Taken together, the four countries listed above account for 80% of journalist murders committed in this part of the world during the 10-year period, according to data collected by RSF.
Data analysis was carried out in partnership with Volt Data Lab, which produced the graphics that illustrate this publication.
An analysis of the RSF data shows that 39% of the victims covered topics with a political connection. Other issues most frequently covered by the murdered journalists were crime and corruption. Journalists most often targeted were those working in the field, reporting on and criticizing illegal schemes in their regions.
More:
https://gijn.org/2021/07/05/silencing-the-press-a-decade-of-journalist-murders-in-latin-america/
