The Legislative Assembly in El Salvador approved a law that requires media outlets to publish letters of response verbatim of people who feel offended by any reported content, according the newspaper El Faro.
In case of the media outlet refuses to publish the exact letter in a period of three days, the person can take the case to a justice of the peace, who can hand down a jail sentence of one to three years for that outlet's directors or representatives.
The law, known as the Special Law for the Right to Rectification or Response does not specify what is considered offensive. The law excludes those responses made by people who are interviewed by the media outlet, as well as paid spaces.
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.
