Journalism in Colombia: interview with Silvia Higuera

“Colombian journalists have played important roles in telling the stories and the history of our armed conflict”. Photo: courtesy

Silvia Higuera is a Colombian journalist whose main subject of interest is the coverage of Latin American issues and human rights, with special attention to freedom of expression. Currently, she writes for the Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas, in Austin. In Colombia, she has studied Social Communication and Journalism at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Bucaramanga, and in 2015 she has completed her Master’s of Arts in Journalism at the University of Texas, in Austin.

Silvia has collaborated with the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In her country, she was a reporter for newspapers and magazines, where she wrote about local, economic, and public issues. Below is an interview with her about democracy and journalism in Colombia.

Enio Moraes Júnior — Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are important topics in your career. Do you think in the past 20 or 30 years journalism on online platforms has created more possibilities for press freedom, particularly in Latin America?

Silvia Higuera — Internet and online platforms created more possibilities for freedom of expression in general. As some experts have said, the internet created what they called the “democratization of information”…