Violence and hate speech, challenges for Latin American journalists

Murders of journalists, stigmatization of reporters, and the danger of spreading fake news and hate speech are the main challenges facing Latin American journalism.

That is what Uruguayan Fabian Cardozo, the new president of the Federation of Journalists of Latin America and the Caribbean (Fepalc), told Sputnik.

The Uruguayan journalist, a reporter for Uruguay’s state-owned Canal 5 and producer of the GPS International program on Sputnik, was elected as the new president of Fepalc at the congress held by the trade union organization in Lima.

Peruvian journalist Zuliana Lainez will be Fepalc’s vice president and head a board that also includes journalists Celso Schröder from Brazil, Domingo Vargas from Chile, Filemón Medina from Panama, José Guzmán Beato from the Dominican Republic, Adriana Hurtado from Colombia, Sonia Arrieta Mora from Costa Rica and Santiago Ortiz from Paraguay.

In a conversation with Sputnik, Cardozo placed as the first objective of his term as head of Fepalc the work to “confront violence and stigmatization of journalists” in the continent.

In this sense, he pointed out that in the region, “there is an act of physical violence that many times ends in the death” of journalists and claimed that “there is a fundamental responsibility of the States, which must take charge of the episodes that happen in the countries.”

Cardozo made special mention of the situations in Mexico and Colombia, where the murders of journalists are repeated, and asked the governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Gustavo Petro to act to solve the crimes and solve the problem.

“It is very difficult to practice journalism in freedom when one is at risk of death,” summarized Cardozo.

But in addition to the cases of Colombia and Mexico, the last few months have put the spotlight on crimes against journalists in other countries such as Haiti, where journalists Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue, and Paraguay, where journalist Humberto Coronel were murdered.

In condemnation of the murders in Haiti, members of the Fepalc held a rally in Lima in which they exhibited the names of the victims and posters demanding “enough impunity!

Cardozo said that the executive committee he heads has the mandate to raise the situation of violence against journalists before international organizations such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the United Nations Office of the Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.

“The situations of violence against some journalists in the region cannot go unpunished,” remarked the new president of Fepalc, indicating that the organization will seek that international organizations address the cases.

STIGMATIZATION OF RUSSIAN MEDIA JOURNALISTS

The Uruguayan journalist expressed concern for the physical violence against press workers and the “stigmatization” they suffer in several countries.

“Many times, political and economic power stigmatizes a journalist for offering his or her view on a subject or working for a media,” he said.

In this context, Cardozo mentioned the situation of journalists from Russian media such as Sputnik or RT who were tagged on social networks or whose contents were blocked for some audiences.

“Limiting access to information is an attack on freedom of expression. From Latin America, Fepalc will make its voice heard, as the voice of the entire region, to reject this attempt at censorship and, above all, stigmatization of Russian state media journalists,” he added.

NOT TO AMPLIFY HATE SPEECHES

Fepalc’s other line of work will focus on combating fake news and hate speeches, which occur more frequently in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

For Cardozo, both disinformation and hate speeches demand the responsibility of journalists since “although many times they do not circulate in the media, but in social networks, the responsibility of journalism is not to amplify them so as not to transform them into media facts”.

The head of Fepalc insisted that these phenomena must be combated “with more and better journalism”, so the organization plans to promote “training, reflection and analysis mechanisms for journalists’ organizations throughout the continent”.

With information from Sputnik