In the U.S. state of Florida, a journalist was killed while covering several gun violence incidents involving a man with a lengthy criminal record. A photographer was also seriously injured. The episode in which two other people lost their lives demonstrated the high risk of the news profession in the coverage of shootings in the United States.
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked the media to investigate where 10 of the country's most renowned journalists lived, criticizing that "they do not live in middle-class neighborhoods." At the same time, the governor of Campeche, Layda Sansores San Román, continued her constant attacks on journalists and the media in her television program "Martes del Jaguar," confirming that Mexico is one of the riskiest countries for the practice of journalism.
According to a recent Unesco report, Haiti's current insecurity makes it difficult for journalists to work and forces them to develop in an unsafe environment. For example, journalist Jean Thony Lorthé was kidnapped at the beginning of February and was released a few days ago.
In Peru, the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad denounced that a group of extreme right-wingers approached the homes of journalists Gustavo Gorriti and Rosa María Palacios to insult them with shouts and banners. This event had a lot of repercussions on social media.
The most influential tweet within the digital conversation, with 2616 interactions, was from Carlos Rivera Paz, who wrote: "#ULTIMO The convicted Juan Muñico and other members of #LaResistencia at this moment are perpetrating acts of harassment against journalist Gustavo Gorriti at his home in Miraflores."
On the positive side, according to the IAPA Bot heat map this week, Uruguay was the country with the best climate for freedom of expression in the continent. Furthermore, according to the latest ranking of the Chapultepec Index, a barometer of the state of institutional actions regarding press freedom and freedom of expression, Uruguay is ranked number 3.
IAPA Bot is an artificial intelligence tool of the Inter American Press Association that monitors press freedom violations in real-time. It tracks information published in the media, Google News, Twitter, and from a selection of IAPA notes and denunciations. In addition, it contains a heat map that allows observing the press freedom climate in each country, a button to make complaints, and a menu that highlights the statements of government leaders, citizens' conversations, and relevant events.
IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications in the Western Hemisphere, based in Miami, Florida, United States
