[Wamvan] Argentina's Pulp Fiction: Grupo Clarín and Freedom of the Press

[Lindsay Miles]

link for below article with comments:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12687/argentinas_pulp_fiction

NEWS » FEBRUARY 21, 2012Argentina’s Pulp Fiction: Grupo Clarín and Freedom
of the Press

A new law aiming to end a media monopoly is condemned by international news
outlets.
BY JULIE TURKEWITZ <http://www.inthesetimes.com/community/profile/146148>

With its dominance in peril, Grupo Clarín has launched a savvy marketing
campaign, charging Kirchner with launching an attack on press freedom.

BUENOS AIRES–In June 2002, hundreds of Argentines swept through this city
in protest, calling for the government’s help in the wake of an economic
crisis that had devastated the nation. In a fit of violence, police
officers fatally shot two young men. The following day, *Clarín*, the
nation’s largest newspaper, ran the following headline:”The crisis causes
two new deaths.” The tone of the headline–implicitly abdicating the police
and government of any responsibility – symbolizes what *Clarín* has done
for decades: let corrupt, bloody governments off the hook for their crimes.

The crisis that rocked Argentina 10 years ago has ended. But Grupo Clarín,
the media conglomerate that owns *Clarín*, remains powerful. The
corporation controls 50 percent of the country’s newspaper and magazine
circulation, as well as the largest television network in Latin America. It
also controls Papel Prensa, the nation’s only newsprint-producing company,
allowing it to sell paper to rival publications at predatory prices.

So Argentina’s newly re-elected president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner,
pushed for a law designed to break *Clarín*’s grip on the country’s media
industry and open avenues for new voices. The *Ley de Papel Prensa* declares
the production and distribution of newspaper in the “public interest,” and
requires that the paper company sell paper to everyone at the same price.
The idea is that non-Clarín media will now be able to afford to publish.

The law, passed jat the end of last year, is part of larger social reforms
that empower poorer people and bring former leaders to justice after the
dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. It is also part of an effort to right
the wrongs of that era: Grupo Clarín owes much of its success to
well-documented collusion with Argentine dictators. Indeed, the text of the
new law includes an extensive report on the way corrupt officials helped
Clarín acquire the paper company.

Kirchner’s supporters, including many students, prominent human rights
groups and lower-class Argentines who stand to benefit from her social
reforms, cheer the new law. With its dominance in peril, Grupo Clarín has
launched a savvy marketing campaign, charging Kirchner with launching an
attack on press freedom. The campaign has convinced many foreign
journalists, including reporters working for the Associated Press, Brazil’s
*O Estado* and Spain’s El *País*.

These outlets have reported the corporation’s arguments against the law as
facts, warning against a meddling Argentine dictatorship with an “excessive
concentration of power” (*El País*). The Associated Press reported that the
production of paper is now “under government control.” (Not so, according
to the text of the law.) And the Inter American Press Association condemned
the “malicious attempts by the government of Argentina to control press
freedom.” Grupo Clarín, in turn, has quoted these reports in its own
outlets, basking in a reflected, and false, legitimacy.

What many inside and outside Argentina have ignored, however, is that
governments around the globe have long moderated the power of media
companies. The bill’s approval follows the passage of another law that
limits the number of television channels a media company can own – a law
criticized by *Clarín *, but one that mimics regulation in places like the
United Kingdom and the United States.

“Get your head out of the water, *opositores*,” writes Argentine journalist
Alberto Daneri, addressing those who criticize the *Papel Prensa* law. “The
law declares the distribution of paper ‘in the public interest,’ not ‘in
the party’s interest.’”
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Julie Turkewitz lived in Buenos Aires in 2008 and 2009. She writes about
AIDS and homelessness for the nonprofit Housing Works.
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