Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa has personally attacked Gustavo Cortez, editor of the leading daily newspaper El Universo. During a TV broadcast on Saturday the President accused the newspaper editor of being “wicked” and “of having bad faith.” Whilst showing a photograph of the editor, Correa called on the people of Ecuador to remember Cortez as a “clear example of the bad press in the country.”
The headquarters of a leading Lebanese TV station Al-Jadeed were attacked by armed men earlier this week. Five masked gunmen opened fire on the building in Beirut at 9.30pm on 25 June, and set fire to tires in the station entrance. The attack followed the airing of a controversial interview with Sheikh Ahmad Al-Assir, a Salafist Imam, who harshly criticised the Shiite Muslim leaders in the country. Al-Jadeed were forced to apologise for the interview, and any anger it had unintentionally provoked.
A Chilean TV journalist has been suspended after making satirical remarks about a tribute to the country’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet. After an interview with the tribute’s organiser Juan González, sports reporter Víctor Gómez said “we will wait for the smell of sulphur to dissipate” from the studio before launching into his programme on the channel Chilevisión. The reporter was not fired for his remarks, but has been warned against violating the channel’s editorial guidelines.
Mexican crime journalist Stephania Cardoso, who went missing with her two-year-old son on 8 June, is understood to be under the protection of the federal government. Cardoso, a reporter with the Zócalo Saltillo newspaper in the state of Coahuila, spoke to Radio Fórmula on 15 June, confirming she and her son were alive and well but gave no further details of her whereabouts or circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Colleagues last saw Cardoso and her son on 7 June during a Freedom of Expression Day celebration.