Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/central-america/)
Veteran Nicaraguan journalist and editor Carlos F. Chamorro delivered the memorial lecture at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. His speech reveals how press freedom has been eroded in Nicaragua, and the challenges of producing journalism under the ‘totalitarian regime’ of President Daniel Ortega.
The award-winning Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora is the founder of elPeriódico, a publication known for its investigations focused on government corruption. When he was arrested last year, local and international organizations called for his immediate release amid concerns of rising hostility to the press in the Central American country.
Accusations of sexual harassment against the head of a state-owned bank, the transnational growth and influence of Salvadorian gang MS13, and the striking accumulation of wealth by the president and his family in one of the poorest countries in Central America. These were some of the investigative topics among the prize-winning stories featured at the 2022 Latin American Conference on Investigative Journalism.
In an environment of increasing restrictions on civic organizations and impunity for crimes against press professionals, independent media in Guatemala are battling threats on several fronts. Here, journalists from three Guatemalan digital media outlets detail the strategies and tools they are using both to survive and to produce quality investigative stories.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from February 11 to 18 finds learning opportunities from @utknightcenter and @WorldResources, while @Tagesspiegel and @correctiv_org ask who owns Berlin’s housing and @LacePadilla examines what makes a good visualization.
The last time GIJN Spanish Editor Catalina Lobo-Guerrero was in El Salvador, she was so shaken up by stories of violence and sexism towards women there that she ended up writing an Op-Ed for The New York Times with the following opening line: “I don’t want to go back to El Salvador.” But last month she returned to the country to attend the ForoCAP, the Central American Journalism Forum.