Americas Exra/Pan-Am Highway

Venezuela’s short-lived ban on publishing gruesome photos spotlights a Latin American newspaper tradition
 
Even in a violent neck of the woods of Latin America, Venezuela’s murder rate stands out as shockingly high. Consider that Mexico, which has grabbed headlines internationally for the bloody toll of its warring drug gangs, has a homicide rate of about 12 per 100,000 people.
 
In Venezuela, it’s about 54 per 100,000 people.
 
In the first 11 months of 2009 there were more than 16,000 murders in a nation with a population just a little larger than that of Texas. That’s according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a non-government group, because the government of populist Hugo Chavez no longer releases official homicide statistics.
 
Just how touchy the Chavez administration is on the subject of homicide was demonstrated vividly in mid-August when one of its most persistent critics in the news media, the daily El Nacional, splashed across its broadsheet front page a gruesome full-color photograph of about a dozen mostly naked bodies laid out in a dingy Caracas morgue. The purpose, explained Editor and owner Miguel Otero, was to draw attention to the nation’s murder rate.
 
A federal judge quickly imposed a 30-day ban on the publication of "violent, bloody or grotesque" photographs, saying the pictures could cause psychological harm to children.
 
El Nacional and its supporters in the Venezuelan media protested that the action was yet another attempt by Chavez to muzzle the independent press. The special rapporteurs for freedom of expression from both the Organization of American States and the U.N. vigorously condemned the “act of prior censorship” in a joint statement. After a few days, Judge William Paez Jimenez sheepishly revoked his ban.
 
Given Chavez’s relentless campaign against the independent press — and the fact that the high levels of street crime and murder were a major issue as the government headed into parliamentary elections in late September — it would be easy to conclude the episode was all about politics.
 
Yet there is a tradition of publishing over-the-top grisly photos by many Latin American newspapers — and some regional sociologists believe they give an exaggerated sense of insecuridad to citizens. The downmarket papers that specialize in gore are called “red newspapers,” as in blood red.
 
The largest newspaper in Ecuador, for instance, is El Extra, a red tabloid that frequently dwells on the details of murders, rapes and street crime. “Obviously, some things that we write could be considered ‘morbid’ by some people,” El Extra reporter Oscar Reyes told Roberto Bravo Freire, writing recently in Dispatches International.
 
But the red papers say they are only reflecting reality. Consider El Nuevo Alarma!, one of Mexico’s most venerable red papers. A couple of decades ago, the pages of Alarma! were filled with bloody car crashes and casualties of bar fights. But with the explosion of narco-violence, Alarma! now routinely publishes photos of  decapitated heads or the charred and tortured corpses of those who got crosswise with drug cartels.
 
As Bryan Curtis, senior editor at The Daily Beast, says: “In its typically gruesome, exploitative way, Alarma! imparts some understanding, which is one of the jobs of journalism. It’s a sick paper for a sick war.”
 
A sick paper, perhaps, but one with a following: Alarma!’s circulation is up 20% in the past couple of years.

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PAN-AM HIGHWAY
 
BRAZIL:
Jornal do Brasil, one of the oldest newspapers in the Brazil at 119 years old, went online-only Sept. 1. Unlike the few U.S. newspapers that have eliminated their print editions, Jornal do Brasil is not reducing the size of its 150-person newsroom. After a two-week free period, the newspaper began charging $5.60 a month for access.
 
HONDURAS:
Honduras continued on its tragic trajectory of becoming the most dangerous place for the press in Latin America as veteran radio reporter Israel Zelaya became the 10th journalist killed in 2010. National Police say Zelaya was kidnapped and shot to death in San Pedro Sula Aug. 24. The 62-year-old Radio International journalist had earlier told authorities someone tried to set his house on fire, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas reported.
 
MEXICO:
Mexico, the other contender for the most dangerous place for journalists, was criticized by the special rapporteurs for the UN and OAS for “the general impunity and the lack of government action in the face of organized crime's retaliations against the press,” La Crónica de Hoy reported. Seeking a business opportunity from the violence against journalists, Colombia-based Miguel Caballero is promoting a bullet-resistant version of a photographer’s vest. The company’s sales director lamented to the news agency EFE that sales have not increased despite the rising toll of journalists.
 
PARAGUAY:
Not-so-veiled threat: The wife of an accused drug trafficker threatened Rosendo Duarte, correspondent for the newspaper ABC Color, on his radio program in the Brazil/Paraguay border city of Salto del Guairá. “You have to take better care of your mouth, your daughter, and your family," she said over the air, according to ABC Color.
 
VENEZUELA:
Though Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government is often accused of anti-press behavior, it is moving aggressively to prosecute the alleged mastermind of the 2009 murder of Venezuelan journalist Orel Sambrano. After Colombian authorities arrested alleged drug trafficking kingpin Walid Makled García, Venezuela asked for his extradition on charges of drug trafficking and the murder of Sambrano, according to the New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists.