By Alejandro Martínez
In July last year, opposition leader, former legislator and former presidential candidate Martha Roldós visited Washington D.C. to talk with possible financial backers about a new news agency she wants to create.
The media outlet would be led by well-known Ecuadorian journalist Juan Carlos Calderón and would publish in-depth stories in a country where investigative journalism has become weaker and weaker after years of government lawsuits, disparaging remarks against the press from public officials and last year's approval of a controversial communications law.
But state newspaper El Telégrafo described the initiative as an elaborate plan to destabilize the government. In a front-page story published on Jan. 6, El Telégrafo even included several messages from Roldós' email, which she says were hacked from her account.
In an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Calderón described El Telegráfo's story as "a storm in a glass of water."
The news agency would "have the purpose of generating investigative journalism and covering topics that we believe citizens must know about, but based on this they construct an international conspiracy theory," he said.
This week Roldós announced she will sue the government and the public media outlets that ran the accusations in both civil and criminal courts.
El Telégrafo's story, "The U.S. NED will finance media project in Ecuador," quoted several messages from Roldós email that detail conversations she has had while searching for support to finance a new non-profit, Fundación Mil Hojas, that would administer a news agency with the would-be name of Tamia News. Roldós has sought funds from the Washington Office in Latin America (WOLA), the Open Society Foundations (which have given funds to independent media throughout the country and organizations like the Knight Center) and the National Endowment for Democracy, or NED.
The story criticizes the NED – a U.S. non-profit created in 1983 that describes itself as a promoter of democracy worldwide – as an instrument of the CIA that spends millions of dollars each year to weaken governments that oppose the United States.
According to El Telégrafo's story, Roldós' project "has no media or journalistic purpose other than supporting the political opposition" and "the objective would be to strengthen the Ecuadorian government's opposition." Moreover, the article states that Calderón would receive a salary of $24,000 a month (Calderón said the amount would be his annual salary, not monthly).
In a recent national televised address, President Rafael Correa referred to El Telégrafo's story to criticize the initiative as an attempt to conspire against his government.
"They've lost all sense of good and evil, getting financing with the extreme American right to establish through a foundation a news agency in Panama to speak against the Ecuadorian government," he said.
Roldós y Calderón (the former is the daughter of former President Jaime Roldós and the latter is a well-known journalist who is currently the editor-in-chief of Plan V, a news site composed by former members of the now-deceased investigative magazine Vanguardia) have publicly confirmed they're looking for financial backing to launch a news agency but have stated the initiative would be an independent -- not opposition or destabilizing -- media outlet.
Roldós said her Hushmail account was hacked on Dec. 2 and she suspects someone working with the Ecuadorian government ordered the intrusion in an attempt to discredit her (Roldós said she spoke to every person who received a copy of the messages published by El Telégrafo and was told that no one provided the messages to the newspaper). Roldós told the Associated Press the incident was part of "a smear campaign in what could be the first case of a public figure’s digital privacy being violated for political ends in Ecuador."
In statements to the AP, El Telégrafo's editor Orlando Pérez declined to say how his newspaper obtained the messages but said that his team did "its work without violating any ethical norms,"
Regarding El Telégrafo's accusations, Roldós said her news agency would seek to establish its headquarters in Panama because of the current difficulties facing the press in Ecuador.
“We seek to launch the project in another country because it's been proven that there are no safeguards to do independent investigations in ours," she said.
And despite the NED's Cold War era origins, veteran Colombian journalist Gonzalo Guillén -- who is also mentioned in El Telégrafo's story as a possible collaborator of Tamia News -- defended Roldós' application to the U.S. organization for funds by citing an investigation he led five years ago, financed by NED, on Colombia's paramilitary forces and the links between former President Álvaro Uribe, drug traffickers and extreme right-wing criminal groups.
Despite everything, Calderón said the visibility brought by El Telégrafo's story could end up being beneficial for the project.
"It has had the best baptism it could ever have, which is an important international discussion. I thank the government for this," he said.
Ecuador has become one of the countries in the American continent with the most frictions between the government and the press. A recent report by non-profit Fundamedios documented 174 attacks on freedom of expression in Ecuador during 2013 – the highest number registered in the last five years – which included new media regulations created by the country's new communications law and the constant public attacks from President Correa to journalists who are critical of his government.
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.
