Today, without a doubt, we have less capacity to cover what’s going on in the city streets.” Reporting amid a security crisisĪccording to news site Primicias, criminal violence in Ecuador resulted in the deaths of some 4,603 people in 2022 - an increase of 82.5% over the year prior. “The collapse of the business model based on advertising forced us to adapt to this hasty process of change. “COVID-19 accelerated our digital transformation,” said owner Carlos Pérez Barriga. The leading Guayaquil-based daily El Universo was among those struggling to survive, laying off 150 employees since the start of the pandemic. Various Ecuadorian newspapers have been forced to close their print editions and several suspended payment to their employees as financial troubles multiplied, Fundamedios reported. (Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas/Iván Castaneira) A team from the journalist group Fundación Periodistas sin Cadenas reports during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. A report from the journalist group Fundación Periodistas sin Cadenas (Journalists Without Chains Foundation) showed that from March 2020 to November 2021, the Ministry of Labor listed a total of 22,948 layoffs by companies in the media and communications sector. Confrontation has been normalized and we are the enemies,” said Francisco Rocha, director of the Ecuadorian Association of Newspaper Publishers (AEDEP).Ĭorrea’s smear campaigns and troll warfare - the former president is still lashing out at his critics on Twitter, according to a recent report by Fundamedios - have had a pile-on effect on private media already financially weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are stigmatized, and can’t identify ourselves without being reviled,” said Cristóbal Peñafiel, president of the National Journalists Union. The lingering effects of Correa’s anti-press actions, which included filing defamation lawsuits, enacting restrictive measures, and smearing critics, have weakened the media’s ability to report the news, local journalists told CPJ during a recent visit to the capital of Quito. The legacy of former President Rafael Correa, who ruled from 2007 to 2017, has caused lasting damage to journalism in Ecuador. While Lasso took steps to protect the media, additional factors have exacerbated an already volatile situation. In the first four months of 2023, the organization reported a total of 96 attacks. In a recent report, Ecuadorian press freedom group Fundamedios documented 356 attacks on the press in 2022, the highest number since 2018, in an increasingly hostile environment. The situation is compounded by political turbulence as President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative former banker who took office in 2021, dissolved the National Assembly in May as it moved to impeach him over corruption allegations, which he denied.Įcuadorian journalists and activists worry that a “perfect storm” is gathering to imperil press freedom in this South American nation. Developments like these portend a grim outlook for press freedom in Ecuador, a country facing a spike in violence against journalists amid a security crisis with no precedent in recent history. Two journalists forced to flee due to death threats in a single month explosive devices mailed to multiple broadcasters reporters compelled to be accompanied by law enforcement in order to cover violent areas and entire communities turned into so-called “silent zones,” where the press is intimidated from working.
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