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During a June 2011 workshop at the Institute of the Americas, journalists talked about the impact of violence and political repression on their news reports. Photo by Luis J. JiménezLA JOLLA -- Violence and political repression are silencing journalists in Latin America.

Mexico is one of the world’s deadliest countries, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found in its recently released Impunity Index.

Brazil has recorded five unsolved murders of journalists in the past decade.  And Colombia, which the CPJ reports has historically been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, has recorded 11 journalist murders over the past decade that remain unsolved.

“They have killed us, we have been forced to live in exile, we have lived under threat for decades,” said Camilo Chaparro, a reporter with RCN TV in Bogota, Colombia. “But this fight for truth has been valuable because the public still believes in our work. People realize that we have had martyrs, journalists who have given their lives for the truth.”

In response to the dangers faced by journalists in the region, the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, California, organized a seminar in June 2011 titled, “Silencing the Press: Who are they? Why do they want to silence us? What can we do about it?”
Brazil has recorded five unsolved murders of journalists in the past decade.  And Colombia, which the CPJ reports has historically been one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, has recorded 11 journalist murders over the past decade that remain unsolved.

“They have killed us, we have been forced to live in exile, we have lived under threat for decades,” said Camilo Chaparro, a reporter with RCN TV in Bogota, Colombia. “But this fight for truth has been valuable because the public still believes in our work. People realize that we have had martyrs, journalists who have given their lives for the truth.”

In response to the dangers faced by journalists in the region, the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, California, organized a seminar in June 2011 titled, “Silencing the Press: Who are they? Why do they want to silence us? What can we do about it?”

Journalists from Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico attended the workshop and spoke about the impact of this dangerous pressure on news coverage in their countries.

“As the title of this workshop indicates, these threats are global, cross-border, international,” said Ivan Flores, editor of Vanguardia magazine in Ecuador, which has faced intense political pressure.

The journalists heard advice from experts in “safe journalism.”Susan White, who served for three years as senior editor of ProPublica, spoke with journalists about innovative approaches to investigative reporting. Photo by Luis J. Jiménez

“You have to plan for the worst. You never know when something can happen to you, when you are going to find yourself in a situation where you have to react to protect yourself,” said Cynthia Cardenas, legal advisor to Article 19 in Mexico.  “You have to take all the prevention measures possible so you don’t reach this point, but you also have to know how to react in the face of an emergency.”

The journalists heard the warning of a colleague who fled Mexico after being threatened by a drug cartel.

“This is not the moment when we can allow ourselves to play the role of hero,” said Luis Horacio Najera, a Mexican journalist who sought political asylum in Canada after being threatened by a drug cartel operating on the US-Mexico border.  “I have always said that the journalist is Clark Kent and the superhero is Superman.  Remember – you are a journalist. You are Clark Kent.  You are not Superman.”

The journalists traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, where they met with top editors at the news weekly “Zeta” and with Victor Clark, director of the Centro Bi-Nacional de Derechos Humanos.  They also toured areas of Tijuana that have faced attacks by organized crime.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.  Since 1992, the CPJ reports that 25 Mexican journalists have been murdered.

“The situation we are facing in Ciudad Juarez, as in many other places in the country and, above all, at the northern border, is a difficult situation,” said Rocio Gallegos, a journalist at El Diario de Juarez, which twice has suffered murders of its journalists.  “We are facing unprecedented violence that has hurt journalism and that has hurt the population in general.  The worst problem that we are facing is impunity, impunity in the aggressions and the murders of our colleagues and of the public at large.”

In many cities in Latin America and the United States, reporters are looking for new -- and safer ways – to publish their work.  Some are now publishing investigative reports on their web sites.

Vicente Calderón, (center) founder of TijuanaPress.com, talked with Latin American reporters about the challenges of news coverage at the U.S.-Mexico border. Photo by Luis J. Jiménez“TijuanaPress was created with two objectives: First, to exercise journalism with greater freedom at the border, and, second, to promote advances in the way of communicating by doing one story at a time,” said Vicente Calderon, founder of TijuanaPress.com.  “We do not produce a great number of stories.  In fact, we have been reducing the number of stories that we do. But we try to correct many of the problems that we see in other media by being precise and by being attentive to detail.”

In San Diego, California, where media organizations are experimenting with new forms of journalism, the web site VoiceofSanDiego.com has won numerous prizes for its investigative reporting.

“The only way we can survive is by doing something different,” said Andrew Donohue, editor of VoiceofSanDiego.com. “We are doing stories that no one else would have done.  By doing this, we are creating competition. This is a more democratic and a more diverse system.  We have more voices and we give more people access to information.”

As the seminar concluded at the Institute of the Americas, the journalists agreed that they must strengthen networks in Latin America to demonstrate their solidarity with colleagues who are in danger.

“We all feel that there are people in other countries who are interested in our work and who support us,” said Luis Galeano, an investigative journalist at El Nuevo Diario in Nicaragua who has faced death threats for his tough political coverage.  “But when we come to a place like the Institute of the Americas, and we are face to face with people who say, ‘We can help you and we are going to help you. All you have to do is call us and we will be there,’ it gives us the certainty that we are not alone.”