22 Jan 18 | Argentina, Global Journalist, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published 52 interviews with exiled journalists from 31 different countries.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97517″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]It was a story that shook Argentine politics. For the journalist who broke the news, it upended his life.
On January 18, 2015, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment just days after releasing a 289-page report accusing then president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her foreign minister of covering up Iran’s involvement in the 1994 bombing of Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish community center. The explosion killed 85 people and was the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history.
The journalist who broke the story of Nisman’s death on Twitter was Damian Pachter, a young Argentine-Israeli reporter for the English-language Buenos Aires Herald.
“Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found in the bathroom of his house at Puerto Madero. He was not breathing. The doctors are there,” Pachter wrote.
That tweet set off a chain of events that led both to an investigation of Kirchner and to Pachter fleeing Argentina for Israel.
Kirchner’s government, which had been seeking to undermine Nisman’s allegations, immediately labeled his death a suicide, as Nisman’s body had been discovered with a handgun nearby. “What led a person to make the terrible decision to take his own life?” she wrote on Facebook, soon afterwards.
Nisman’s death and Kirchner’s move to call it a suicide triggered a massive protest in Buenos Aires. The Argentine government was later forced back away from its claims that Nisman had committed suicide, and Kirchner’s Front for Victory narrowly lost presidential elections later that year. An investigation into Nisman’s death concluded earlier this year that it was a homicide.
Pachter, who had been working on a freelance story for an Israeli newspaper about Nisman’s investigation of the bombing and the government’s efforts cover up Iran’s role, was soon targeted by the government.
Six days after Nisman’s body was found, he fled to Israel with nothing but a backpack.
Pachter, 33, now works as a producer for Israel’s i24 News and as a host for Ñews24 in Tel Aviv. As for Kirchner, she has consistently denied any role in Nisman’s death or covering up Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing. In October, she won election to the Argentine senate, a position that gives her legal immunity from prosecutor’s efforts to charge her with treason and covering up the government’s role in Nisman’s death.
Pachter spoke with Global Journalist’s Maria F. Callejon about the strange days after Nisman’s death and his flight from Argentina. Below, an edited version of their conversation, translated from Spanish:
Global Journalist: Tell us about the night of Nisman’s death.
Pachter: I was in the living room when I received the news of Nisman’s death from a source at approximately 11 p.m. For 35 minutes I talked to my source to try to verify it. At 11:35 p.m. I sent the first tweet: “I have been informed of an incident at Prosecutor Nisman’s house.”
I already knew what had happened, but I took the time to talk to my source, to check there were no mistakes and to get as much detail as I could. At 12:08 a.m. I tweeted: “Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found in his bathroom at his house in Puerto Madero. He wasn’t breathing. The doctors are there.”
[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97522″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://twitter.com/damianpachter/status/557011746855321600″][vc_column_text]GJ: What were your first thoughts after receiving the information?
Pachter: I was very robotic. Immediately, I started fact-checking. Pretty much like a machine: at first, it was shocking, but I was the one who got it and I had to make sure that everything was true to then publish it. That was it. I thought I was going to be fired for tweeting first. But I told myself that if I was going to be fired for something, it might as well be this, but I had to publish it.
GJ: Did you think the government would try to cover up the incident?
Pachter: I can’t say that I didn’t, but I didn’t imagine anything precise. Knowing the government and how they treated journalists critical of them, I thought that they would create a media campaign against me. I had delivered news that affected their power, I had to have the [courage] to endure what came after. It’s part of the job. I got into journalism for this kind of thing. There are ups and downs, but you have to do your job and that is to publish what they want to hide. The investigation of Nisman’s death took two years and a new government. The previous government almost shut it down. A couple months ago, the police determined it was a homicide. Think about what would’ve happened if nobody had said anything.
GJ: What happened the day after you reported this?
Pachter: We were all in shock, nobody could believe what was happening. There was an atmosphere of fear. I interpreted that as the government making a show of their power. They had ordered the killing of the prosecutor that had accused them, and I think they didn’t consider the consequences. They didn’t think that this would be important nor that it would have the popular response it had.
GJ: How was the rest of the week?
Pachter: People were calling me, I swear, they wouldn’t stop calling from all over the world. We started doing some appearances on some big networks like CNN. In the meantime, I tried to do my job as normally as I could, but the emotion was so overwhelming, that didn’t work. I had too much adrenaline. In the days afterwards, a source of mine started messaging me to come visit. That source lived out of the city, so I didn’t pay too much attention. In the meantime, I was preparing to face further attacks from the government. I knew I was going to be targeted for being Israeli and Jewish. So I thought I would go on TV and set the record straight. I knew that they would attack me for that. I was used to the government. Any journalists that confronted them would suffer the consequences.
GJ: Were you attacked for being Jewish?
Pachter: They will do anything to discredit you. Instead of saying that I was a journalist doing my job, they said that I was working for the Israeli intelligence services, that I was an undercover agent. The government took pictures from my Facebook account of me in the Israeli army, something that I’d already talked about publicly. They marked my face with a yellow circle and sent it to pro-government groups. While this was happening, my source kept insisting that I visit. On Thursday [five days after Nisman’s body was discovered], I got an email from a colleague. The link in the mail showed that Télam, Argentina’s government news agency, had published some information about me. My name was misspelled, my workplace was incorrect and they had changed my tweets [about Nisman’s death]. This disturbed me and I thought something was going on. I sent that information to my source, who again said I should come visit. That’s when it hit me, after four days. My source was saying too that something was going on.
GJ: What did you do then?
Pachter: I left the newsroom and left my car parked there. I took a taxi back to my apartment. There, I packed a backpack with clothes for three days. That was my plan, to go and hide for three days until it all calmed down. For whatever reason, I grabbed my Israeli passport and my identity card. Then I took a bus out of town to meet with my source. While I was waiting at the cafe of a gas station, I realized a man had come into the cafe and there was something strange about him, his body language and his presence. I sat still in my seat. Time passed and this man was still there, not asking for anything to drink or eat. My source called me and told me to stay wait for him. Twenty minutes later, he was there. He came in through the back door, so he saw the man sitting behind me. My source approached me and said: “Don’t turn around. You have an intelligence officer behind you. Look at my camera and smile.” We pretended as if he were taking my picture, but he really took one of the man. When he realized what we were doing, he left. Right then I knew I had nothing else to do in the country. I was leaving. I was sure they were going to kill me, taking into account what happened to Nisman.
GJ: How did you plan your trip?
Pachter: At the cafe I did what I could to book a flight as soon as possible. The soonest one was with Argentina Airlines, from Buenos Aires to Montevideo to Madrid to Tel Aviv. I went straight to the airport to catch my flight on Saturday [six days after Nisman’s body was found]. I met my mom and said goodbye. I told her what was happening and she understood what was at stake. I also met with two colleagues of mine who were there to document it all. And then I left. During my flight, the Pink House [Argentina’s presidential residence and office] published on its official Twitter account the details of my flight. There it was clearly, just what I had thought: this was official persecution.
GJ: How did you feel when you got to Israel?
Pachter: Some friends and journalists from international media and local media met me there. Once I was there, it felt like a weight off my back. Once we landed, I felt safe.
GJ: Since you went into exile, Kirchner’s government lost the election and she was replaced by opposition candidate Mauricio Macri. Have you considered going back?
Pachter: For now, I don’t want to go back, as much as people tell me everything is fine. I have many feelings that discourage me from going. I was expelled, in a way, from Argentina. I was forced to go into exile because of my job.
GJ: Was it worth it?
Pachter: Yes, of course. I would do it a thousand times.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
08 Jan 18 | Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, News and features, Venezuela
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Latin America is home to a growing number of independent publications, like Venezuela’s Efecto Cocuyo, that do not depend on government advertising
With general elections scheduled in six Latin American countries this year, and another six to follow in 2019, the relationship between the media and democracy could have a major impact on the future of the region. However, mounting financial pressures are robbing many media outlets of their objectivity and forcing them to toe pro-government lines.
With traditional advertising revenue in decline, Latin American governments are using vast publicity budgets to keep cash-strapped publications afloat. In return, the media are expected to portray their benefactors in a favourable light.
According to the NGO Freedom House, much of the media in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Mexico is heavily dependent on government advertising, resulting in widespread self-censorship and collusion between public officials, media owners and journalists.
“The history of journalism in Latin America is a history of collusion between the press and powerful people,” said Rosental Alves, a Brazilian journalist and founder of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in an interview with Index. Sections of the media have become subservient, he explained, as any critical coverage could be punished with audits or a loss of advertising revenue.
Financial pressures on the media are particularly pronounced in Venezuela. Alves observed that the Nicolás Maduro regime has applied “waves of censorship” to the media by first decrying it as “the enemy of the people” and then buying up media companies to “make them friendly.”
Freedom House notes that “although privately owned newspapers and broadcasters operate alongside state outlets, the overall balance has shifted considerably toward government-aligned voices in recent years. The government officially controls 13 television networks, dozens of radio outlets, a news agency, eight newspapers, and a magazine.”
This is compounded by Venezuela’s severe economic problems and the virtual government monopoly on newsprint supplies that have led to newspaper closures, staff cutbacks and reduced circulation of critical media.
Mexico’s government has taken the more subtle approach of co-opting swathes of the media through unprecedented expenditure on advertising. According to the transparency group Fundar, President Enrique Peña Nieto has spent almost £1.5 billion on advertising in the past five years, more than any president in Mexican history. On top of that, state and municipal administrations have also spent millions on publicity in local media.
Darwin Franco, a freelance journalist in Guadalajara, told Index that government spending has led to some publications telling reporters “who they can and cannot criticise in their work.”
Then there is the infamous chayote, a local term for bribes paid to journalists in return for favourable coverage. Franco said Mexican reporters are particularly vulnerable to economic pressures or under-the-table incentives because it’s so hard for them to make a living.
“Freelance journalists in Mexico don’t receive the benefits that employees are legally entitled to,” he said. “National media outlets — and even some international ones — pay us minimal fees for stories, which in some cases don’t even cover the costs of reporting.”
Franco, who also teaches journalism at a local university, added that many reporters take on second jobs to supplement their income. With Mexican journalists making less than £450 per month on average, he acknowledged that “there may be people who are tempted” to take money from the government.
Despite these financial pressures, Alves is encouraged by the technology-driven democratisation of the media across Latin America, with increased internet penetration and the affordability of smartphones allowing people who could not afford computers to access nontraditional media for the first time.
These include rudimentary blogs, social media accounts and more sophisticated media startups, Alves said, with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and even Venezuela home to a growing number of independent publications that do not depend on government advertising.
“We are living a time of the decline of advertisements as the main source of revenue for news organisations. On the one hand you have this huge decline in traditional advertising because of Google and Facebook getting all this money, and on the other hand you see the virtual disappearance of the entry barriers for becoming a media outlet,” Alves noted.
“We’re moving from the mass media to a mass of media because there’s this proliferation of media outlets that don’t depend on a lot of money,” he added. “If you can gather some philanthropic support or membership, or you’re just doing it by yourself, like many courageous bloggers are doing in many parts of the region, you don’t make any money but you don’t spend any money either.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Survey: How free is our press?” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fsurvey-free-press%2F|title:Take%20our%20survey||”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-pencil-square-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
This survey aims to take a snapshot of how financial pressures are affecting news reporting. The openMedia project will use this information to analyse how money shapes what gets reported – and what doesn’t – and to advocate for better protections and freedoms for journalists who have important stories to tell.
More information[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”97191″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/01/tracey-bagshaw-compromise-compromising-news/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Commercial interference pressures on the UK’s regional papers are growing. Some worry that jeopardises their independence.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/12/jean-paul-marthoz-commercial-interference-european-media/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Commercial pressures on the media? Anti-establishment critics have a ready-made answer: of course, journalists are hostage to the whims of corporate owners, advertisers and sponsors. Of course, they cannot independently cover issues which these powers consider “inconvenient”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96949″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.opendemocracy.net/openmedia/mary-fitzgerald/welcome-to-openmedia”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Forget fake news. Money can distort media far more disturbingly – through advertorials, and through buying silence. Here’s what we’re going to do about it.
This article is also available in Dutch | French | German | Hungarian | Italian |
Serbian | Spanish| Russian[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1515148254502-253f3767-99a5-8″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Sep 16 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, mobile, Volume 45.03 Autumn 2016
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Does anonymity need to be defended? Contributors include Hilary Mantel, Can Dündar, Valerie Plame Wilson, Julian Baggini, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Maria Stepanova “][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2”][vc_column_text]
The latest issue of Index on Censorship explores anonymity through a range of in-depth features, interviews and illustrations from around the world. The special report looks at the pros and cons of masking identities from the perspective of a variety of players, from online trolls to intelligence agencies, whistleblowers, activists, artists, journalists, bloggers and fixers.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”78078″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
Former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson writes on the damage done when her cover was blown, journalist John Lloyd looks at how terrorist attacks have affected surveillance needs worldwide, Bangladeshi blogger Ananya Azad explains why he was forced into exile after violent attacks on secular writers, philosopher Julian Baggini looks at the power of literary aliases through the ages, Edward Lucas shares The Economist’s perspective on keeping its writers unnamed, John Crace imagines a meeting at Trolls Anonymous, and Caroline Lees looks at how local journalists, or fixers, can be endangered, or even killed, when they are revealed to be working with foreign news companies. There are are also features on how Turkish artists moonlight under pseudonyms to stay safe, how Chinese artists are being forced to exhibit their works in secret, and an interview with Los Angeles street artist Skid Robot.
Outside of the themed report, this issue also has a thoughtful essay by novelist Hilary Mantel, called Blot, Erase, Delete, about the importance of committing to your words, whether you’re a student, an author, or a politician campaigner in the Brexit referendum. Andrey Arkhangelsky looks back at the last 10 years of Russian journalism, in the decade after the murder of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov looks at how metaphor has taken over post-Soviet literature and prevented it tackling reality head-on. Plus there is poetry from Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky and Russian writer Maria Stepanova, plus new fiction from Turkey and Egypt, via Kaya Genç and Basma Abdel Aziz.
There is art work from Molly Crabapple, Martin Rowson, Ben Jennings, Rebel Pepper, Eva Bee, Brian John Spencer and Sam Darlow.
You can order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: THE UNNAMED” css=”.vc_custom_1483445324823{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Does anonymity need to be defended?
Anonymity: worth defending, by Rachael Jolley: False names can be used by the unscrupulous but the right to anonymity needs to be defended
Under the wires, by Caroline Lees : A look at local “fixers”, who help foreign correspondents on the ground, can face death threats and accusations of being spies after working for international media
Art attack, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Ai Weiwei and other artists have increased the popularity of Chinese art, but censorship has followed
Naming names, by Suhrith Parthasarathy: India has promised to crack down on online trolls, but the right to anonymity is also threatened
Secrets and spies, by Valerie Plame Wilson: The former CIA officer on why intelligence agents need to operate undercover, and on the damage done when her cover was blown in a Bush administration scandal
Undercover artist, by Jan Fox: Los Angeles street artist Skid Robot explains why his down-and-out murals never carry his real name
A meeting at Trolls Anonymous, by John Crace: A humorous sketch imagining what would happen if vicious online commentators met face to face
Whose name is on the frame? By Kaya Genç: Why artists in Turkey have adopted alter egos to hide their more political and provocative works
Spooks and sceptics, by John Lloyd: After a series of worldwide terrorist attacks, the public must decide what surveillance it is willing to accept
Privacy and encryption, by Bethany Horne: An interview with human rights researcher Jennifer Schulte on how she protects herself in the field
“I have a name”, by Ananya Azad: A Bangladeshi blogger speaks out on why he made his identity known and how this put his life in danger
The smear factor, by Rupert Myers: The power of anonymous allegations to affect democracy, justice and the political system
Stripsearch cartoon, by Martin Rowson: When a whistleblower gets caught …
Signing off, by Julian Baggini: From Kierkegaard to JK Rowling, a look at the history of literary pen names and their impact
The Snowden effect, by Charlie Smith: Three years after Edward Snowden’s mass-surveillance leaks, does the public care how they are watched?
Leave no trace, by Mark Frary: Five ways to increase your privacy when browsing online
Goodbye to the byline, by Edward Lucas: A senior editor at The Economist explains why the publication does not name its writers in print
What’s your emergency? By Jason DaPonte: How online threats can lead to armed police at your door
Yakety yak (don’t hate back), by Sean Vannata: How a social network promising anonymity for users backtracked after being banned on US campuses
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”IN FOCUS” css=”.vc_custom_1481731813613{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Blot, erase, delete, by Hilary Mantel: How the author found her voice and why all writers should resist the urge to change their past words
Murder in Moscow: Anna’s legacy, by Andrey Arkhangelsky: Ten years after investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was killed, where is Russian journalism today?
Writing in riddles, by Hamid Ismailov: Too much metaphor has restricted post-Soviet literature
Owners of our own words, by Irene Caselli: Aftermath of a brutal attack on an Argentinian newspaper
Sackings, South Africa and silence, by Natasha Joseph: What is the future for public broadcasting in southern Africa after the sackings of SABC reporters?
“Journalists must not feel alone”, by Can Dündar: An exiled Turkish editor on the need to collaborate internationally so investigations can cross borders
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Bottled-up messages, by Basma Abdel Aziz: A short story from Egypt about a woman feeling trapped. Interview with the author by Charlotte Bailey
Muscovite memories, by Maria Stepanova: A poem inspired by the last decade in Putin’s Russia
Silence is not golden, by Alejandro Jodorowsky: An exclusive translation of the Chilean-French film director’s poem What One Must Not Silence
Write man for the job, by Kaya Genç: A new short story about a failed writer who gets a job policing the words of dissidents in Turkey
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”COLUMNS” css=”.vc_custom_1481732124093{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Global view, by Jodie Ginsberg: Europe’s right-to-be-forgotten law pushed to new extremes after a Belgian court rules that individuals can force newspapers to edit archive articles
Index around the world, by
Josie Timms: Rounding up Index’s recent work, from a hip-hop conference to the latest from Mapping Media Freedom
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
What ever happened to Luther Blissett? By Vicky Baker: How Italian activists took the name of an unsuspecting English footballer, and still use it today
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1483444808560-b79f752f-ec25-7″ taxonomies=”8927″ exclude=”80882″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Nov 13 | Americas, News and features
While president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government took a hit during midterm elections, Argentina’s supreme court ruled her restrictions on the country’s media were constitutional. (Photo: Claudio Santisteban / Demotix)
The Argentinian supreme court recently ruled to uphold the country’s controversial media law. The decision represents a big victory for President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who argued that the law helps break up the power concentrated in the hands of Argentina’s biggest media conglomerate Grupo Clarín. Opponents, however, says it stifles freedom of expression and press as it would force media companies to sell off some of their outlets. Concerns have also been raised about the law being a way of punishing Clarín, which fell out with the government after negative coverage during tax protests in 2008.
This is only the latest chapter in the ongoing story of the media business in some Latin American countries, with left wing governments and private companies locked in a decade-long fight for control of what will be shown on TV, heard on the radio, printed in newspapers, and posted on websites. New communications laws, persecution of journalists and closure of television networks, however, shows who is really in charge.
Governments like Venezuela and Argentina are waging war against big media companies, while more moderate ones, like Brazil, are using milder means to try and balance the power of communication in their countries. But far from being presented as a straightforward issue of freedom of expression, most of these cases have two opposing and radical interpretations.
On one side, there is the pro-government camp. They believe the governments are democratising the media, which has traditionally been in the hands of the few. In Brazil, for example, eight families control almost 80% of all traditional media companies. The aforementioned Grupo Clarín owns national and regional newspapers, radios, TV channels and more.
Those opposing these measures, however, say they amount to censorship. Again, a good example comes from Argentina: there are some rumours that Kirchner’s administration is trying to suffocate Grupo Clarín by not allowing big chain stores to advertise in their papers. There is also the infamous case of the the closure of Venezuela TV channel RCTVI in 2010.
Both sides talk of freedom of expression, arguing they want to show what is better for the public. But the public – those with the most to benefit from a good and transparent media – are not being allowed to decide for themselves. This is not happening just in Argentina and Venezuela, but across the continent – in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, and, albeit in a much gentler way, in Brazil.
Professor Mirta Varela, specialist in history of the media at the University of Buenos Aires, is among those who believe governments are not repressing the big companies or trying to dominate the industry. “The measures taken have shown the political and economic power of the main companies, the spurious origin of their economic growth and their relationship with the dictatorship”, she explains, referencing Grupo Clarín and the military regimes that held power in almost all the Latin American countries from 1960 to 1980. But she also sees some problems with this polarisation: “There is a little room to set a new agenda; to make independent criticism, not overtly for or against the government.”
Cecilia Sanz works for Argentinian TV show “Bajada de línea”, which roughly translates to “Under the Line”. The show is hosted by Uruguayan Victor Hugo Morales, a well-known journalist connected to what Sanz calls “the progressive governments” in Latin America. Here she groups together a number of different left-leaning governments from across the continent – from moderates Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, to the more radical Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
The show comments on the state of the media in Latin America, mainly arguing against the big private companies. “Our main goal is to put in context and show how the media owners have the intention, above all else, to accomplish their economic objectives,” she says. “The are using ‘freedom of expression’ as an excuse for this”. She mentions the case of powerful Mexican TV Azteca, which according to her, supports all the candidates from the hegemonic party PRI, and Chilean paper “El Mercurio”, which used to attack Chilean ex-president Salvador Allende in the 1970s – again putting very different cases in the same group.
The more radical of these “progressive governments” accuse the media industry of trying to destabilise the authorities or to encourage coups d’état. Venezuela’s putsch in 2002 is always mentioned. In this case factions of the media was directly fighting against Hugo Chávez – so Chávez took them off the air.
“This is an insult to the audience because in all of cases it is about the most popular media channels”, counters Claudio Paolillo, president of the freedom of press and expression commission of SIP, Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa (the Inter-American Press Society). “No one has put a gun to the audience’s head to force them to choose what to read, listen or watch, and on what channel.”
Paolillo says the government engages in “Goebbels’ style” propaganda, sustained by public resources, to oppress independent or critic media and journalists. He adds that, ironically, these radical “progressive governments” act like the conservative military regimes of the past. “It is an ideological posture. They want to nationalise communications media as if it was a regular business that offers services or products.”
Paolillo says SIP is against Latin Americas state-controlled monopolies or oligopolies, but reaffirms it is the audience that has the real power to decide what to watch, and where. If they want to watch the same news program, the government shall not interfere. “Unfortunately in Argentina as in Venezuela (and we must add here Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia), governments have created their own media companies, expropriated and bought private ones – in some cases even working through a figurehead”, he complains.
Brazilian political scientist Mauricio Santoro brings up another common problem in the region – organised crime targeting reporters in Mexico and Colombia. But he says this is not a new situation. In his opinion, what is new, is “progressive governments” using the power of the state to control its opponents.
“The alternative proposed by these leftist governments is not based on the construction of an alternative model that privileges pluralism and gives a voice to social and community movements. It is about breaking business groups and giving power to a state press that acts like a government representative and not a public one.”
Worried about the poor quality of the media across Latin America, Santoro suggests the continent needs a more dynamic media, more capable of listening and understanding the true necessities of the people of a region going through “profound change”.
“Looking at the local scene”, he asks, “are we able to find any country where the traditional media meets this expectation?”
Not really.
This article was originally posted on 11 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
