The Week Unwrapped: Latin America, true crime drama and social links
Why are journalists under threat in so much of Latin America? Can fiction ever do justice to real-life crime stories?
Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Jamie Timson, Julia O’Driscoll and Suchandrika Chakrabarti.
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In this week’s episode, we discuss:
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Press freedom in Central and South America
This week El Salvador's leading media organisation El Faro announced it was moving its legal operations to Costa Rica in order to avoid a crackdown on its reporting by President Nayib Bukele. Central American countries have long punched above their weight when it comes to independent media investigations but with a series of strongmen coming to power from Guatemala to Guadalajara press freedoms have not been protected. In an age of social media and citizen journalism do we care as much about the freedom of the press any longer and if not, why not?
Insta links
Social media companies are in flux at the moment, as Twitter continues to shed staff and change the rules for users. Now, Instagram is also making some changes. Its new functionality seems relatively trivial – allowing more than one link in a user’s bio – but the change is likely to have significant consequences for how people use the platform. It could even put some companies out of business.
True crime
The UK was gripped by a week-long manhunt for the violent killer Raoul Moat in July 2010. An ITV dramatisation of the events released this week has been welcomed by one of the victim’s families, while others have warned that the miniseries will bring more trauma. It has re-ignited a debate over whether true crime can ever be ethical.
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