Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/latin-america/page/2/)
Censorship. Imprisonment. Threats and violence. Online harassment. Legal battles. Exile. The list of challenges facing investigative reporters in Latin America is extensive. But despite the difficulties, journalists across the region are doing incredible work and holding those in power to account with their reporting.
GIJN spoke with International Symposium on Online Journalism founder, Rosental Alves, about the growing backlash against independent media in Latin America.
From shared bylines to awards credit, and from fair pay to due recognition, read the best-practice tips for working with local journalists or fixers when collaborating on investigations, from Frontline Freelance Mexico.
A press freedom crisis is rippling across Latin America and in some places the technological, legal, and physical threats have grown so severe that investigative journalists feel compelled to flee their home countries to keep reporting.
Every year thousands of migrants cross one of the most dangerous borders in the world: the Darién Gap, a magnificent but deadly rainforest that connects Colombia and Panama. GIJN spoke to a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and one of her teammates, who trekked through the jungle to investigate what happens en route.
More than 115 countries worldwide have laws that require officials to turn over public records. Of course, even in countries that have no laws it never hurts to ask.
COLPIN is the most prestigious investigative journalism gathering in Latin America, and is organized by the Institute for Press and Society. On December 4 the winners of the Javier Valdez Latin American Prize for Investigative Journalism, named in honor of the Mexican journalist killed in 2017, were announced.
Investigating the environment in developing countries can be a particularly dangerous game – far more so in the Global South than in North America and Europe. Journalists in the developing world are prime targets for powerful political and economic interests, operate in a hostile climate, and often lose their lives far from the Western media spotlight.
In March 2020, environmental journalist Helena Carpio, leaned out of her window to see Caracas filled with smoke. Something was burning, but no one knew where and there was no official news on what was happening. She started to investigate, and the resulting project analyzed two decades of satellite data on hotspots to explore the when, where, and why of forest fires in Venezuela and across Latin America.
For digital-first news outlets in Latin America, lessons learned from reader-funding experiments are being transformed into highly tailored membership programs that offer a chance at a more sustainable future. Independent, mission-driven or subject-specific news sites, in particular, are leading the way, converting close relationships with audiences into funding through editorially-linked, labor-intensive initiatives.