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Country Summary
Argentine journalists in recent years have played a more active role in safeguarding their own freedoms, and the press now plays a vital role in setting the national agenda. Many Argentines decry what they see as corruption and social inequities under the 14-year-old democratic government. They say they consider the judiciary and legislature to be unable to redress grievances and expect the press to fill the vacuum by in effect playing the role of investigator, prosecutor, and judge.
The public’s expectations have created an enormous responsibility for the press. Journalists fear that the continued failure of society at large to resolve its political problems could backfire and lead to frustration and disenchantment with the press itself. "Argentine journalists are aware that the press can investigate problems, set ethical standards, and suggest alternatives, but we can neither solve the issues at stake nor punish those responsible," said Horacio Verbitsky, a columnist with the daily newspaper Página 12.
Along with its new higher profile, the press experienced a proportionate rise in hostility and threats. President Carlos Menem fired a legislative offensive against the press, bringing lawsuit after lawsuit, although so far the targets have successfully fended off his assaults. Menem and other government officials have also launched poisonous verbal attacks. In May, for example, the president labeled as "traitors" journalists who had filmed slum dwellers grilling cats for food.
In an important victory, on Dec. 17 Menem lost a libel suit he had brought against Página 12 in 1994. Menem had sued after Página 12 published an article questioning the veracity of the president's claims that he had been tortured under Argentina's military dictatorship. In the suit, the president named Verbitsky, the columnist who wrote the article, and the newspaper's editors, Ernesto Tiffenberg and Fernando Sokolowicz. Journalists, writers, artists, rabbis, bishops, and union and political leaders were present in the courtroom during the hearing, a clear sign of the widespread support in Argentina for an independent press.
On Nov. 13, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, acquitted the political columnist and commentator Joaqu’n Morales Solá in a libel case brought by a former government official. Dante Giadone, a special secretary to former President Raœl Alfons’n, had sued Morales Solá for defamation for Morales Solá's description of an alleged conversation between Giadone and Alfons’n. The passage had originally appeared in the newspaper Clar’n, but Giadone sued after it was reprinted in a 1990 book.
The Association for the Defense of Independent Journalism, an independent press freedom group, vigorously monitored press conditions during the year and acted on behalf of threatened or harassed journalists. The association, spearheaded by Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most distinguished journalists, reflects a trend in Latin America of journalists coming together to use their collective moral weight to promote freedom of the press. Formed in December 1995 to defend journalists under attack and to alert Argentine authorities and the international community to any pressures on the press, the organization has been an effective advocate. It played a pivotal role in a libel and defamation case against Jacobo Timerman, a founding member of the group. After pressure from the association, Menem in April dropped the charges he had brought in 1988.
And in December, an appeals court overturned the slander conviction of Eduardo Kimel, who had accused a judge of deliberately failing to investigate five slayings during Argentina's military dictatorship. Kimel's book, The St. Patrick's Massacre, describes the July 4, 1976, murder of three priests and two seminary students.
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