A new report found that a majority of the 32 state governments in Mexico hides information regarding their official advertising expenses in media outlets and that none of them has specific rules on how they allocate their publicity budgets. "This discretionary distribution of advertising funds weakens informative pluralism and increases suspicions of political favoritism," said the organization Fundar, which put together the second edition of the report Access to Official Advertising Funds Index along with the Mexican chapter of the press freedom organization Article 19.
The Federal Administration of Public Incomes (AFIP in Spanish) in Argentina has come under fire for a controversial survey on Argentines' media and journalistic personality preferences, reported the newspaper El Día.
Six Mexican Senators presented a bill to publish public spending for all levels of government in print and electronic media, according to the newspaper El Universal.
On Saturday, July 28, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said that official government advertising will be withheld from several private news media outlets that have accused his administration of damaging freedom of expression in Ecuador.
On Wednesday, March 7, a group of pro-government Argentine newspapers launched the Federal Association of Publishers of Argentina (AFERA in Spanish) as an alternative to the group Association of Newspaper Entities in Argentina (ADEPA in Spanish), reported the newspaper Perfil.
On Feb. 17th, more than 300 newsroom employees of the Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) signed a statement demanding that the journalistic integrity of their work be upheld as the network negotiates its sale with private investor groups, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. The statement also expressed “dismay” that journalists’ coverage of the sale has been compromised and censored by corporate management, said Poynter and Politico.
Mexican organizations Article 19 and Fundar are urging the government to limit spending on communication and advertising just days before the 2012 Expenditure Budget is set to be debated in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, according to the website Avance MX.
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled July 13 that government departments could not discriminate against the community radio station La Voladora with official ad spending, La Jornada reports.
Enrique Hernández Padrón and Graciela Castañón Aguilar, former reporters for El Portal in the central Mexican city of San Luis Potosí, say they were fired under pressure from the state government to keep from losing advertising money, Mexico’s National Social Communication Center (CENCOS) reports.
The nation’s highest court unanimously upheld a ruling that obliges the state to omit discriminatory criteria and to maintain “reasonable balance” in allocating government advertising, Hoy newspaper and EFE report.