Guyler Delva

In the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake, Kerby Joseph stays on the job. He helps gather news for Amikal FM, a radio station that now broadcasts from a tent in the devastated Haitian town of Leogane, where most of the buildings have been damaged or destroyed. But the radio station lacks the money to pay Joseph's salary. So ever since the disaster, Joseph works for free, retiring at the end of the day to a camp where he shares a makeshift, tin-roofed shelter with 10 other people “I haven't been paid anything—not a cent,” Joseph said. “We just keep working for the community. Quite simply, that's why we do this.”

Thousands of Haitians, including many journalists, have fled the country since the January 12 earthquake. Ronald Leon, a veteran journalist who worked with Haiti’s National Television station, Radio Caraibes and Tropic FM, has now settled in Florida, leaving behind his family and his journalism training school, Ameritech, which was destroyed in the earthquake. Its last class had 15 students.

Working in an atmosphere of great confusion and grief, our sources in Haiti are compiling preliminary lists of media casualties, documenting damages to news facilities, and examining the challenges ahead. SOS Journalistes, a press advocacy group led by the prominent Haitian journalist Guyler Delva, reports that at least 11 journalists died in the January 12 earthquake outside Port-au-Prince. CPJ continues to investigate their identities and the circumstances in which they died.

The Association of Haitian Journalists has recorded at least three media fatalities and one seriously wounded journalist as a preliminary toll from the earthquake that struck the Caribbean island on January 12. In an interview with CPJ from Port-au-Prince, AJH Secretary General Jacques Desrosiers identified the early victims as Wanel Fils, a reporter with Radio Galaxie; Henry Claude Pierre, a Jacmel-based correspondent for Radio Magic 9; and Belot Senatus, a cameraman for Radio Tele Guinen.

At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, prominent Haitian journalist Joseph Guyler Delva, 43, was driving his car on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Delva, the country’s leading press freedom advocate, was on his way to pick-up his 7-year-old daughter from school when he heard a loud bang. “I thought I was hit by a truck,” he said. After few moments, he realized it was not a collision. The earth shook beneath him, buildings collapsed in front of him, and in a minute, a great wall of dust fully covered the capital.

New York, December 12, 2008--A Port-au-Prince court sentenced journalist and press freedom advocate Guyler Delva to one month in prison on Wednesday for defaming a former senator. Delva said he has received death threats he believes are linked to the case. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the court's decision today, and urged Haitian authorities to investigate the threats against Delva.

Haiti's best known press freedom activist, Guyler Delva, sent out a frantic call for help yesterday morning. At least 70 journalists and media workers in the northern city of Gonaïves are living in dire circumstances, Delva said in his e-mail. They need food, clothes, and shelter, as well as equipment, he specified. In short, "they have lost everything in the recent floods."

On the other side of Hispaniola Island from the lavish tourist resorts in the Dominican Republic, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. Politically, the harsh Duvalier dictatorships and the controversial Aristide era devastated the country. This year, starving mobs protested the high prices of basic food staples as the international press reported that many are surviving on mud cakes. 

New York, April 9, 2008—Two Haitian reporters were injured by rubber bullets while covering clashes between protesters and Haitian and U.N. forces in Port-au-Prince Tuesday, according to news reports and interviews. A third journalist was wounded by pellets that were fired by protesters, a press advocate said. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Haitian and U.N. authorities to provide the necessary protection to allow journalists to work safely.

Press conditions improved slightly during a year of relative political stability. A decline in gang violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince, allowed reporters to make a cautious return to the city's streets. And, with the strong support of President René Préval, an independent committee was created in August to monitor stalled investigations into a series of journalist murders this decade.