-The greatest strength of Ferreira's work lies in his successful synthesis of an increasing body of secondary material on the region and the subject. His book provides a useful reference for historians and students who desire a compendium of the major developments and struggles that journalists have endured over the past 200 years in Latin America....[I]t is clear that Ferreira went to great lengths to synthesize the existing body of scholarship. His efforts are commendable and his work provides a useful took for instructors interested in a survey of the literature of the history of the news media in Latin America. —Journalism History

-Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism by Leonardo Ferreira takes on a huge taskto review and summarize the story of Latin American newspapers and broadcast journalism. A member of the communication faculty at the University of Miami as well as a consultant to the Inter American Press Association, the author grew up in Colombia before attending college and grad school in the United States. His history is critical, in almost every sense of that term, as he finds the press too much under the thumb of various national elites, and rarely sticking up for the common person or criticizing government personnel or policies. —Communication Booknotes Quarterly

-Ferreira begins by asking whether there was a nascent or proto-journalism in pre-Columbian America. Then he looks at such stages of Latin American journalism as the idealism surrounding liberation from Spain; war, censorship, and propaganda during the 19th century; revolution and the Cold War; and tension between globalization and a fair and humane world. —Reference & Research Book News