By Ingrid Bachmann
The Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities (ADEPA in Spanish) is condemning the government of President Cristina Fernández and criticizing government officials' insults and defaming of reporters and the media.
ADEPA cited the case of the Minister of the Economy, Amado Boudou, who compared two journalists to Nazis; the insults by the president on her Twitter account, and the attacks of the chancellor Héctor Timerman and the cabinet head Aníbal Fernández, explained Perfil. “The insults blow up the bridges of dialogue,” the organization said in a statement.
The growing tensions between the Argentine government and private media have created a polarization. As Robert Cox wrote in the English-language Buenos Aires Herald, “In today's Argentina, journalists are at war with each other.” In this media war, “the first casualty is truth.”
Cox also lamented the consequences of this conflict, especially in light of Argentina's former dictatorship: “Terrible things happen when the press fails to do its job. The situation today, with the media at war, is more complicated, but the need for honest journalism is as important as ever."
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.
