Andrew Downie/CPJ Brazil Correspondent

Andrew Downie left Scotland 25 years ago to travel in Latin America. He has since lived in Mexico, Haiti, and Brazil and reported from almost every country in the region. Now based in São Paulo, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, GQ and Esquire, among many others.

Journalists follow a Facebook Live of Jair Bolsonaro, far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 7, 2018. After taking office in January, Bolsonaro and his supporters have made Brazilian journalists' jobs more difficult. (Reuters/Sergio Moraes)

Bolsonaro is making Brazilian journalists’ jobs more difficult

First as a candidate and now in his first months as president, Jair Bolsonaro has made his disdain for the media crystal clear. Ministers, supporters, and his family members have followed his lead by no longer offering interviews, attacking and blocking critical reporters on social media, and calling them out as “fake news.”

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Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, right, talks to the press in Brasília on November 27. Journalists in Brazil say they expect the hostile climate experienced during the election to continue as Bolsonaro takes office. (AFP/Evaristo Sa)

Ahead of inauguration day, Brazilian media braces for Bolsonaro

Long before one of their photographers was harassed on election night in Brazil, the editors at Fortaleza newspaper O Povo were meeting with their readers and staff to discuss the increasingly polarized environment and how to deal with it.

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Radio Yandê founder Renata Machado. Rádio Yandê is one of the few outlets in Brazil to tell the stories of the country's indigenous people on their own terms. (Alfredo Boc Boc)

How Brazil’s ‘ethno-communicators’ are helping indigenous people find their voice

The people who run Radio Yandê, a Brazilian digital portal dedicated to indigenous issues, have many words to define what they do, but even though the site has stories, video and audio, none of those definitions include the word journalist.

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Fans watch the Rio Olympic Games soccer match between Brazil and Germany in August 2016. Brazil's female sports journalists are campaigning for an end to the harassment they face covering matches. (AFP/Tasso Marcelo)

Brazil’s ‘Let her do her job’ campaign demands respect for female sports reporters

On March 25, not long before two of the biggest soccer matches of the season were about to kick off in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, a previously unknown group posted a video online that was of relevance to everyone involved in the game. The group had no name but they had a hashtag…

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A cell phone is used to film a homelessness protest in Sao Paulo in December 2017. Ahead of October elections, police are tasked with combating the spread of fake news. (Reuters/Nacho Doce)

Ahead of elections, Brazil’s police announce plan to crackdown on ‘fake news’

In November last year, Brazilian police stopped a truck on a highway in the center of the country and, after a thorough search, discovered more than six tons of marijuana stashed in false compartments. The truck had the name Romanelli on the side, but police said it was a label designed to confuse and that…

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Brazil's Chamber of Deputies holds a session on April 12 with only two deputies after the Supreme Court announced corruption investigations into a number of politicians. A journalist has questioned why the court released details of his telephone call with a source, despite him not being part of the investigation. (AP/Eraldo Peres)

Released recording highlights polarized atmosphere for Brazil’s political reporters

The release of a private conversation between a well-known journalist and his source has shaken the journalistic community in Brazil and highlighted the increasingly polarized and uneasy terrain in which political reporters work.

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In Brazil, outdated defamation laws and costly court cases used to pressure critics

Brazilian journalist Erik Silva never imagined that printing information from a municipal government website would see him accused of defamation and lead to a drawn-out court case. But almost a year after writing about the size of salary earned by a municipal accountant in Corumbá, a city of just under 100,000 people on Brazil’s western…

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A protester takes cover as police throw tear gas during protests in August over the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. Journalists have been caught in the crossfire of Brazil's political unrest. (AP/Andre Penner)

In Brazil, journalists face injury from violent protests and accusations of bias

Felipe Souza was covering an anti-government protest in São Paulo earlier this month when a line of riot police advanced toward him.

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Security patrol the venues for the Rio Olympics. Journalists covering the Games can report press freedom complaints to the International Olympic Committee. (AFP/David Gannon)

IOC offers some protection but press at Rio Games should be wary of security risks

When the Rio Olympics open on Friday, the thousands of journalists covering it will have the added security of knowing a formal mechanism has been put in place to let them report any press freedom violations that take place during the Games. The creation of the reporting mechanism follows years of advocacy with the International…

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Police cordon off the street where an officer was shot dead in 2012. Changes to how the Rio force investigates murders helped resolve the case of a journalist killed in 2013. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)

Amid rising violence in Brazil, convictions in journalists’ murders are cause for optimism

Justice delayed is justice denied, goes the legal maxim, and that has all too often been the case in Latin America. But the perseverance of lawyers and prosecutors in Brazil has resulted in a number of recent convictions in cases many thought had been buried or forgotten.

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