Colombian Journalism - A Lot Less Deadly

A newsstand in central Bogota.  

Conditions are improving for journalists in Colombia - in contrast to much of the rest of the region.

In its annual report isued today, The Federation for Press Freedom, or FLIP, reported 123 'agressions' against Colombian journalists during 2013 and two killings, of a radio reporter and an informal journalist. Many of the attacks took place against reporters covering last year's massive anti-government protests.

Still, as disturbing as those events are, Colombian journalists had it much worse in years past, when often more than 10 journalists were murdered annually. Many of those past killings, the FLIP points out, remain unsolved.

José Dario Arenas

The FLIP made a specific report about the violence-wrought Bajo Cauca region, where radio stations have abandonded news reporting in favor of sports and music to avoid angering the wrong people.

One of the journalists killed was a young man in the town of Caicedonia, near Armenia, who had Extra Quindio to support his wife and children. Soon, he started phoning in information about the local prison and police incidents to the newspaper. Apparently, he reported on the wrong person. One day, two men bought a newspaper from him, opened it, looked at an article about Caicedonia's prison and then shot Arenas dead.
practiced the trade informally, and for only six months. Jobless, José Dario Arenas, 32, had started selling the

Both Arenas's mother and a journalist who investigated Arenas's murder received death threats. The journalist later quit his job at the newspaper, which is no longer sold in Caicedonia. The killers won.

On the positive side according to the FLIP was the passage this year of legislation broadening access to government documents - altho it still requires the president's signature to go into effect.

But across Latin America, many media are under siege from their own governments - in many cases,

El Tiempo reports the demise of Venezuelan newspapers.

ironically, leftist governments whose leaders suffered decades ago under repressive right-wing dictators.

In Ecuador, Argentina and Venezuela, governments have used new laws, slander charges and economic weapons to intimidate and disable critical journalists. In Venezuela, probably the most critical case, broadcast media have lost their licenses and newspapers find themselves unable to import newsprint. Venezuela's leftist leaders have repeatedly accused the media of causing the nation's soaring crime.

In much of the region, it seems, the violence once used to repress the press has been replaced by intimidation, economic and legal tactics.

During this week's protests in Venezuela, the Venezuelan government banned Colombian TV station NTN24 from cable networks and the government-owned phone company even blocked Twitter photos.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Press Freedom Gets More Defenders

The Inter-American Press Association at a meeting in Venezuela, whose president has not signed the declaration protecting press freedom.

Tomorrow, Colombian mayors and governors are to sign the Declaration of Chapultepec, which commits them to respect and defend freedom of the press.

Pres. Santos signed the declaration last year. It's no mystery why this rush to sign

Passers-by look at a newsstand in central Bogota.

this 1994 declaration, has only happened recently. After all, previous Colombian Pres. Alvaro Uribe had a sort of paranoia about the press, which he apparently often suspected of collaborating with guerrilla groups.

The declaration includes high principles of protection for the press, including bans on censorship, and a prohibition against punishment of journalists for publishing news, restrictions on press circulation and others.
If only freeing the press were so simple as signing a non-binding declaration. Dangers to journalists continue in Colombia - Jineth Bedoya, who in the year 2000 was kidnapped, beaten and raped while investigating the murders of prison inmates, continues receiving threats. But governments and big business also have more subtle weapons for controlling media coverage, such as providing or withholding advertising or access to news sources.

I haven't seen strong evidence of such pressures here in Colombia, but they may very well be taking place. (Laudatory news coverage of certain fossil fuel corporations, for example, makes one wonder whether the journalists are receiving more than their salaries for their efforts.) But several leftist government in the region, including Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Argentina, have used lawsuits, legalisms and bureaucratic mechanisms to intimidate and shut down the media.

Coincidently, these nations' presidents don't appear to have signed the declaration.

In a way, that's encouraging, since it suggests that the declaration does mean something.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Sad Adiós to the Colombian Miami Herald

A past edition of the Miami Herald's international edition.

Last year, a familiar and surprising publication appeared on Bogotá newspaper stands: the international edition of the Miami Herald.

It lasted about one year, and I always wondered how it could survive in a nation in which few people read the news in English, and those who do do it mostly on the Internet. This year, I haven't seen the Herald on newsstands.

In reality, it was mostly New York Times stories below the Herald's masthead. I occasionally purchased the paper, in part because it brought back memories of sitting down with the morning paper back home in the States. And, for all of the speed and convenience of the Internet, I still find reading on paper more satisfying. And, in fact, studies have found that people recall better what they read on paper than what they read on a computer screen. I also have a personal attachment to the Herald, since I contributed a few stories to them years ago, when they and other papers still had freelance budgets.

(Finally, I also have a guilty reason for preferring reading on paper: When you click on some sleazy, superficial headline about Michael Jackson or Britney Spears on the Internet, you know that some computer someplace is taking note and planning more such stories. But, when you read trash like that on paper, nobody else knows.)

Yesterday, Feb. 9, was the Day of the Journalist in Bogotá, designated by the Circle of Journalists of Bogotá.

Selling an international daily paper in English here had to be a challenge from the start when expatriates and tourists can instantly read the New York Times over the Internet. English-language newspapers in Latin America have also declined in recent decades because of changes in corporate hiring policies, as U.S.- and U.K-based companies have tended to hire more locals, who usually receive lower salaries.

The few English dailies remaining in the region include the Buenos Aires Herald, the Tico Times and The News in Mexico City. Of course, online publications have flourished. But most of those mostly copy or rewrite stories from other publications. For about three years around 2000 I wrote for the Bolivian Times. The Times did some bad, even irresponsible journalism, but also contributed a different opinion and informed. It's since folded, and despite my bad memories of being exploited by the paper's owner, the Times' disappearance was probably a loss for Bolivia.

Across the globe, newspapers are having hard times because of the Internet and other forces, as I, an ex-journalist, know well. In Colombia and much of Latin America, in contrast, newspapers are still going strong - thanks in part to a strong regional economy, to the limited Internet penetration and to wealth families who enjoy the status of running newspapers. But as Internet use spreads, Latin American newspapers will inevitably face the same challenges which U.S. and European are now.

Journalist Jineth Bedoya,
attacked for her work.

In recent weeks, Latin papers and other media have also faced threats from governments and illegal organizations. Ecuador's leftist government passed a law prohibiting journalists from reporting on elections - an obvious move to protect the government from press criticisms. An Ecuadorean court also fined two journalists $2 million for "humilliating" Pres. Rafael Correa with their investigative book about alleged corruption by the president's brother. Journalists' organizations have criticized the Ecuadorean government for these and other moves to muzzle the free press.

Meanwhile, Argentina has passed a law regulating paper sales - an obvious move by the government to intimidate the critical El Clarin media group.

In Colombia, meanwhile, the FARC guerrillas reportedly planned to murder a reporter who they believed to be an informant for the U.S. government and another who had written a book about the late FARC leader Mono Jojoy.

Also, Bogotá police prevented journalists from entering a court hearing on the killing by police of a young graffiti painter. Also, the year 2000 kidnapping and gang rape of Jineth Bedoya, a reporter with the El Espectador newspaper, remains unsolved.

In honor of Journalists' Day, the Circle of Journalists of Bogotá gave awards for outstanding journalists and journalism work in print, radio, TV and other 'net. Semana magazine won an award for 'The DAS's Secret Papers,' about the secret police agency's selling of classified documents.  Olga Beher also won an award for her book 'The Clan of the 12 Apostles,' about allegations of connections between paramilitary groups and powerful Colombians.

Those are a few of the reasons why print journalism continues to be so important and relevant.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Today is Journalists' Day

In Colombia, journalism has historically been a very hazardous profession. According to a 2008 editorial in El Tiempo, Colombian journalists had been murdered at a rate of about ten per year, and about half of those killings were related to their work. The killings, of course, are only a fraction of the number of journalists who are quieted or driven out of their communities or even from Colombia by threats against them or their families.

By that standard, things haven't changed much. Last year, eight journalists were murdered, according to the Colombian Federation of Journalists, and 189 received threats. The federation's president, Eduardo Marquez, says that many of those threats have come from the government or current- or ex-government employees. In addition, he says, the fact that the government is the biggest single buyer of advertising gives it an undue influence.

Clodomiro Castilla Ospino,
murdered during 2010

Historically in Colombia, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups (who have often allied themselves with the government and businesses),  and narcotraffickers have all threatened and sometimes even murdered journalists. Seldom are those killings solved.

Still, Marquez says that the new administration of Pres. Juan Manuel Santos has been much more protective of journalists than was the previous administration of Pres. Alvaro Uribe, who sometimes expressed a somewhat paranoid belief that some journalists were working with guerrilla groups.

World-wide, counts of the number of journalists killed varied, as did calculations of whether the number has risen or declined.

Papers and magazines for sale in dowtown Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours