Residents of Posadas, capital of Misiones province (NE Argentina), demonstrated over the weekend in favor of freedom of expression, responding to last week’s closure of Channel 4. Ten military police officers went to the station Jan. 12 to enforce a court order to suspend its broadcasts. (See other stories here, in Spanish.)
For Argentine publisher and journalist Jorge Fontevecchia, many activists who support President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – those aligned with so-called kirchnerismo – are prone to distorting the truth due to a mix of ideology and resentment. “[T]hey always aspired for notoriety, transcendence, influence, or the visibility that the big media has, [and] never got it and… kirchnerismo heals their frustration,” Fontevecchia controversially writes in his column for Perfil. Fontevecchia is the founder and editor of the newspaper.
The Argentine government spent $27 million on broadcast TV advertising in 2010, and 67.5% of the funds went to Canal 9, the most watched channel in the country, La Nación reports. According to Clarín, opposition lawmakers have called for an immediate investigation into government spending on ads.
Via YouTube, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has released a series of videos about the impact of violence and the risks journalists confront in the so-called "triple frontier" region between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.
A Buenos Aires judge has ruled that demonstrators cannot block access to AGR, a printing company owned by the Clarín media group, and said the Security Ministry must take steps to guarantee the company’s ability to print, Clarín and La Nación newspapers report.
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights presented a complaint against Argentina before the Inter-American Court of the Organization of American States for violating the freedom of expression of two journalists who 15 years ago revealed that ex-President Carlos Menem had a child out of wedlock.
A group of truck drivers in front of the printing presses of Argentina's La Nación and Clarín newspapers delayed the distribution of the Dec. 14 editions for more than two and a half hours, the two newspapers report.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) released a statement calling on the authorities to guarantee the safety of press workers who are covering the recent conflicts in the Parque Indoamericano (American Indian Park) in Buenos Aires, which is currently occupied by at least 5,000 homeless squatters, many of them immigrants. FOPEA also asked media companies to prioritize the safety of their employees.
Soldiers in Argentina’s Gendarmerie police force raided the offices of Papel Prensa, the country’s top newsprint producer and the focal point of an ongoing conflict between the government and Clarín and La Nación, the two largest domestic dailies, EFE and DiarioJornada report.
The Argentine government has initiated new legal action against the newspapers Clarín and La Nación in order to remove the two companies' eight representatives from the board of Papel Prensa, the largest producer of newsprint in the country, Perfil.com reports. The government also wants “judicial intervention” against the papers in response to “numerous and serious irregularities” at the company.
Journalists from Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil will gather in the border cities of the three countries Nov. 26-28, 2010, to attend the First International Journalists Meeting on the Triple Frontier. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas is a co-sponsor of the gathering.
Gabriel Michi, president of the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish), explains the upcoming International Meeting for Journalists on the Triple Frontier, Nov. 26-28, 2010, in Paraguay. During the meeting, journalists from Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil will analyze and debate news coverage of themes pertinent to the tri-national region, such as contraband, terrorism, and drug- and human trafficking.