Ecuador’s government backtracked on its decision to not renew El Universo newspaper’s presidential press credentials, El Comercio reports. This is in spite of an ongoing conflict between the daily and President Rafael Correa, who initiated an $80 million defamation suit against it in March.
The suspension was in response to El Universo’s refusal to retract an article about the political use of the presidential press credentialing process. “Today I will give them their credentials,” said Commutations Secretary Fernando Alvarado, quoted by Terra.
Alvarado denied El Universo’s claim that its reporter had been expelled from the presidential palace over the lack of credential and said “there are not any restrictions on access to information,” El Ciudadano reports.
The government’s announcement came the same day as an El Universo editorial that accused the government of restricting the right to inform in an effort to manipulate the newspaper's coverage.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
