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In theory, the purpose of government advertising is to distribute information of public relevance to society.State advertising funds are meant to help governments communicate with the population about the services they provide and public policies they promote, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

In practice, however, government advertising funds form a crucial pillar of financial sustainability for many media outlets across Latin America. Without regulations defining how these funds should be distributed or transparency that shows where the money goes, the resources become ripe for corruption. They are frequently used as tools for indirect censorship, punishing independent journalism.

These are some conclusions from a study published last week by the Latin American Observatory of Media Regulation and Convergence with support from UNESCO. The study, called "Official Advertising, Media, and Freedom of Expression,” diagnoses existing regulations on official advertising in 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and how they are implemented.

Journalists, academics, and researchers from independent organizations in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay examined state advertising under the coordination of Uruguayan researcher Jimena Torres and guidance from Argentine researcher Santiago Marino. They sought to answer questions like: Are there specific laws regulating government advertising? Are there proactive mechanisms for disclosing these funds? Who is eligible to receive them?

The diagnosis is quite negative. Few countries have adequate regulations, and when they do, they are not systematically enforced. In countries with smaller advertising markets, official advertising becomes critical for the sustainability of media outlets, and it is managed without transparency and with political bias.

"Due to the absence of regulation and the logic behind its management, government advertising is administered from a friend-or-foe perspective, using very opaque criteria for its distribution," Santiago Marino, the chief researcher, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). "This, in turn, conditions both the operation and sustainability of media outlets."

Funds without laws

From the 11 countries studied, only Brazil, Mexico, and Peru have specific laws determining how government advertising funds should be allocated. But the mere existence of a regulation does not guarantee transparency, fairness, or that official advertising promotes pluralism in communication in any of these countries.

Brazil's regulatory framework, from 2008, is the most praised in the study and is considered “sufficiently clear.” It distinguishes between institutional advertising and public-interest advertising, with clear limits on self-promotion by government officials and political parties. However, the allocation of funds is not made easily accessible, requiring more meticulous methods to verify.

Additionally, the Brazilian law did not prevent the government of Jair Bolsonaro, in office from 2019 to 2022, from allocating funds to websites that publish false information. Furthermore, allocation criteria are strongly tied to audience size. “This parameter poses a problem for promoting pluralism by maintaining proportional transfers based on audience size, without investing in smaller, independent outlets,” the report says.

In Mexico, the General Law on Social Communication, enacted in 2018 and amended in 2023, regulates the issue. However, according to the study, the law leaves room for arbitrary use of government advertising budgets because it does not establish clear rules and has not been effective.

In Peru, even with various laws in place, the lack of clear allocation criteria means public entities distribute resources at their discretion. “Independent media, which are mostly critical of incumbent governments, have to seek alternative funding sources, as their stance often makes them targets of resistance to being granted official advertising,” the study says.

This vulnerability to political interests is the general rule among the countries studied. “In general, we struggled to find good practices,” Jimena Torres, the study’s coordinator, told LJR. “In many cases, we ended up saying, ‘there are no good practices in this country.’”

In Argentina, there is partial regulation for the federal executive branch but not for other branches of government. The study finds significant discretion in allocation, which becomes apparent in funds invested by public companies and other entities not directly under the national government.

Argentina also demonstrates “a distribution logic based on rewards and punishments to media outlets or groups according to their editorial stance.” As a result of this practice, several media companies have emerged in recent years, sustained almost exclusively by public funds, the study finds.

In Colombia, there is no specific regulation. As a result, ”the multimillion-dollar contracts for government advertising are distributed virtually without adherence to their intended purpose. “For years, they have been repeatedly used to pressure editorial lines or promote certain narratives,” the study says.

Marino considers the case of El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s government takes authoritarian measures and persecutes journalists, particularly severe. “There is no regulation whatsoever to frame this activity within an informational pluralism approach,” the report says. “The government has implemented strategies to weaken the media ecosystem, including creating its own media outlets and redirecting official advertising funds to a state-run newspaper and an official news channel.”

Geographic concentration

Another recurring issue identified by the study is the concentration of resources in capitals and metropolitan areas, disadvantaging regional or local media outlets.

“We live in media systems where news production and money are often concentrated in big cities,” said Jimena Torres. “For example, in my country, Uruguay, in a department called Cerro Largo, the main advertiser for local media is the municipality. This means there are often no news stories, or very few, that question what the municipality is doing.”

The lack of advertising funds for non-commercial media is another problem, Marino said. Non-profit outlets are often excluded from government advertising, undermining their sustainability and reducing the diversity of voices.

The study concludes with 15 recommendations. Among them is the need for “specific, clear, and unequivocal” laws to regulate the issue at all levels of government. The allocation of advertising should generally be through competitive processes, with direct contracts being the exception. Advertising must not serve as propaganda for political parties, and transparency must encompass all actors involved in the distribution of funds.

Governments should also implement or promote audience measurement systems that include different types of media and use objective, reliable criteria. These measurements should incorporate data from small, community, and local media outlets to ensure their inclusion in allocating advertisements, avoiding their indirect exclusion.

Finally, other public policies are necessary to support journalism, with resources that promote diversity and plurality in media, the study says.

“For example, through public funds distributed transparently and non-discriminatorily, separate from government advertising expenditures,” the study concludes. “These resources must not be used to influence or condition the editorial line of these outlets.”

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