Brazil
Government Makes Effort to Ensure Press FreedomPosted Mar 4 2011
Government officials in Brazil, under the order of President Dilma Rousseff, have “combed through” the different regulations under the present telecommunications and broadcast bill, according to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
O. Estadão de São Paulo reports Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo is spearheading the project that will be an attempt to allow more freedom of the press. Bernardo said that the new rules and regulations would be targeted specifically to electronic media.
The minister said he does not yet know the best way to handle the project and that there might be more than one version to present to Congress, where more than one proposal could help the adoption of the new communication amendments to the Constitution.
In press meetings with the Committee to Protect Journalists, Brazilian government officials said due to separation of powers, there is not much that they can do to change the current laws of the Constitution.
These officials told CPJ “that judicial censorship is inhibiting the work of the local press.”
President Rousseff has been known to encourage freedom of the press, as she declared in an address during the 90th anniversary of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. The Buenos Aires Herald reports Folha has an editorial section that critiques the government, yet President Rousseff said, “A government should be able to live alongside the comments and criticisms made by newspapers, to be able to show a commitment to democracy,” at the address.