The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in conjunction with the Open Society Foundation, released a new digital book about the "Coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean".

The book, available in English and Spanish, is the result of discussions held at the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas in September 2010.

The book "captures the intense and violent working climate journalists face on a day-to-day basis, one that spawns self-censorship and questions of how coverage can better inform the public", Knight Center News says.

The risks that journalists face in reporting on drug wars, especially in a country like Mexico, have already been amply reported. As previously noted, the country is, together with Pakistan, one of the most dangerous countries for journalists' work.

The International Press Institute (IPI) has recently visited Italy with the aim to explore the digital switchover and the pluralism landscape in the country.

IPI examined the potential challenges to the pluralism of Italy's audiovisual sector resulting from the country's digital switchover, and "suggested that pluralism may be bolstered by the switchover, if the value of pluralism is taken into strong consideration in the establishment of the criteria for the technological move", as the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) reported.

It was a follow-up visit of a first "Press Freedom Mission" conducted in November 2010 with the purpose of assessing restrictions on press freedom in Italy and other potential obstacles affecting journalists' ability to report freely, independently and without undue pressure, as IPI's website reported.

Concerns were expressed about two different areas: the danger that predominant interests in the audiovisual sector could be further consolidated by the country's digital switchover and the frequent use of civil defamation cases against journalists, together with the request for exorbitant compensatory fines, which both have an effect on news reporting and lead to self-censorship.

The Icelandic parliament, which is working on increasing press freedom in Iceland, passed a new media control law last Saturday. According to IceNews, 30 MPs of the parliament supported the legislation, while 14 were opposed to it and 19 MPs did not vote.

The new law seeks to protect children from obscene content and to ensure freedom of speech. For these aims, a new media committee will be created to mediate between the media, the public and government. The new law is the first of its kind in Iceland as it covers both the press and broadcast media.

The law has been met with criticism, however, arising also from the press. According to IceNews, DV, an Icelandic newspaper, reported that 2000 people have signed a petition that urges the president to veto the law, which would send it to a public referendum.
It is argued, for example, that a creation of a government-controlled committee to protect and enforce press freedom is a contradiction in terms and would end up having the opposite effect. Moreover, RÚV, Iceland's national broadcasting service, is not controlled by the new law, which is seen as controversial by some.

Many Mexican news organizations have agreed a set of common guidelines in reporting the on-going drug war that is wounding the country.

The voluntary, self-policed guidelines are the first of their kind in Mexico, where more than 35,000 people, including at least 22 journalists, have been killed in drug-related violence since the government stepped up its offensive against cartels in late 2006, the Associated Press (via Yahoo! News) reported.

As recently reported, Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists' work and news organizations are facing hard challenges for the risks run in reporting the violence and the war triggered by drug cartels.

Many news media outlets have signed the agreement promising not to glorify drug traffickers, publish cartel propaganda messages or reveal information that could endanger police operations, AP reported.

The 10-point accord defends the media's right to criticise Mexican government policy and actions in the drugs conflict and promised joint action to protect journalists' safety, BBC News said.