Argentina

In Argentina, millions of pesos in government advertising are distributed without clear rules or standards. News coverage is influenced as critics are punished and government-friendly outlets are rewarded.

Carlos Lauría discusses the backstroy of this special report

New York, September 13, 2007—Argentine radio reporter Adela Gómez was injured Wednesday after national border guards fired rubber bullets into a crowd of protesters blocking a road in the southern province of Santa Cruz.

Gómez, a reporter with radio station FM XXI in the city of Caleta Olivia, about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires, was covering a union protest by workers of Empasa, an oil services company, the local press reported. A group of employees were blocking a road when members of the national border police decided to clear it to allow hundreds of government supporters to make their way to a presidential campaign address in Río Gallegos, the provincial capital, said the daily Clarín. 

New York, September 7, 2007—An Argentine Supreme Court ruling condemning the province of Neuquén for the withdrawal of state advertising from a critical daily will help protect the media from government manipulation, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On Wednesday, Argentina’s highest tribunal ruled the government cannot suppress or substantially reduce official advertising to the media arbitrarily, the local press reported. The court’s decision concluded it is illegal to deprive a critical publication of state ads.

New York, September 4, 2007—The criminal slander conviction of an Argentine radio journalist is alarming and should be overturned on appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Monday’s ruling, by a judge in northwestern Salta province, also bars commentator Sergio Poma from working for one year.

Judge Héctor Martínez handed Poma, owner of local radio station FM Noticias and host of the news program “Código de Investigación,” a one-year suspended prison sentence on a criminal slander complaint brought by the local governor, Juan Carlos Romero, according to local news reports and CPJ interviews. The judge also ordered that the sentence be published in all local media outlets, the journalist told CPJ. Poma said his lawyers have appealed the conviction.

New York, August 7, 2007

Mayor Mónica De La Quintana
Bv. Urquiza 517
San Lorenzo, Santa Fe
Argentina

Via facsimile: 54-3476-422650

Dear Mayor De la Quintana,

The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express deep concern about the closure of the San Lorenzo-based daily El Observador's printing plant ordered by your government in late July, which prompted the paper to stop publishing. CPJ believes the decision violates freedom of expression as enshrined in the Argentine constitution and in the provincial constitution of Santa Fe.

CPJ Update August 2007 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

The Chavez administration pulls a broadcast license as it asserts media muscle.

By Joel Simon

President Néstor Kirchner’s administration continued its practice of funneling government advertising to friendly news outlets and withholding it from critical media. Amid increased tension between Kirchner and the press, authorities were also accused of editorial interference in the abrupt cancellation of two independent shows on state-owned broadcast networks.