The Media Missionaries

5. LATIN AMERICA

At first glance, the Latin America media scene appears to be quite different from the post-Communist world; it is home to a mature media business sector, a culture of freedom and a tradition that has included some of the best journalists in the world. Yet as Russia and the former Communist countries move past privatization to new media/political oligarchies plagued by corruption and political pressure, they look like traditional Latin American media. Here, the owners may be tied closely to the political leaders, who together keep a tight lid on what is acceptable as "news."

In some countries such as Venezuela, the political leaders are more concerned about controlling the airwaves than the printed press. But historically, newspapers in Latin America are more important in setting the political agenda. That is why the rise of more independent newspapers willing to publish investigative journalism, such as Mexico's Reforma, is so important. Their emergence has not been easy. These papers often are under legal and sometimes physical attack. They deserve a supportive international spotlight as well as training, fellowships, legal aid and other elements of media development assistance.

A second trend among Latin American publishers is to create new down-market "light" tabloids to complement their more serious, elite newspapers. They lose relatively few of their current newspaper customers, but gain new subscribers who weren't reading any newspaper before. This has been done, for example, by the Ferrer family, owners of El Nuevo Dia in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (1) This development is cheered on by Northwestern's Media Management Center (MMC) and the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) because it is attracting new newspaper readers. Critics might ask, however, if this is the direction journalism should be going in fragile democracies starving for accountability and basic civic information.

In Latin America, the pressures on the press may be less obvious at first glance than the physical threats and takeovers in Belarus and Kazakhstan. The challenges may even look like marketplace pressures. But they often seek the same end: political coercion. Latin America has a shortage of capital for investing in independent media unless they carry some specific agenda. In most of Latin America, the main source of media income is advertising from the government. Other advertisers follow the government's lead. Thus independent media, if unwilling to offer biased support of the government in exchange for its advertising patronage, can be squeezed out. In some countries, only one or two advertising agencies control the marketplace and even own the media outlets outright.

Governments and their friendly advertising agency allies can "embargo" news organizations by denying them access to advertising. This happened in Chile and also in El Salvador, when a radio station reported corruption involving earthquake relief money. In Guatemala, the previous government embargoed El Periodica newspaper, and Chronica magazine, which subsequently closed. To some extent, the media themselves are also perpetuating this trend, by engaging in unethical practices and exhibiting a willingness to accept tainted advertising money.

Several organizations are interested in working against this "embargoing." For example, the Media Development Loan Fund, which is new to the region, would like to provide capital to bridge those embargo periods, offering other ways of selling advertising and other strategic advice. It is unclear whether MDLF will get involved in a big way; Rosental Alves hopes it will and points out that loans can be more viable in Latin America than in regions that have no capitalist tradition. Secondly, the Inter-American Court of Justice (see also the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, below), based in Costa Rica, ruled that such embargoes are prohibited, opening the way for many possible lawsuits by targeted news organizations.

Aside from this kind of economic and legal support, the biggest need in Latin America is for professional training and education about the importance of a free press and democracy. "People who are journalists don't know how to be journalists or how journalism works in a free society. You also have a need to educate judges and public officers about what a responsible free press is about," said Professor Alves. The more serious problems are in the rural areas and the judicial systems, which still hold onto insult laws dating back to the Napoleonic Code. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is in the midst of a three-year project funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation (MTF) to educate journalists throughout Latin America on such issues of freedom of expression.

The Economist recently reported that Latin Americans are wavering in their support for democracy and disillusioned with privatization. "The optimism that accompanied the rebirth of democracy in the region two decades ago now seems to have worn extremely thin," the magazine concluded. Much of this is based on economic weakness. Fortunately, pro-democracy political transitions in Mexico, with the election of Vicente Fox, and in Peru, with the end of the Fujimora era, have bucked that downward trend. There, people are more supportive of democracy than before. Independent media are playing a part in these political changes. (2)

There are many opportunities to make a difference in Latin America. On the plus side, there is an appetite to learn how the Norteamericanos do journalism, Professor Alves concluded. "This allows partnerships we would never have seen before." Unfortunately, resources are more limited than ever. Two of the U.S. funders in the region are unable to continue at the same level. The Freedom Forum used to invest $100,000 a year in Latin America; they have cancelled all of their international programs. Prospects for renewed funding by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, are clouded by MTF's reduced resources. Details of MTF's current funding are outlined later in this report.

Case Study: The CELAP Story

In the midst of the 1980s wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and the U.S. arrest of Manuel Noriega in Panama, the U.S. government invested money for media in Central America in order to help support the development of democratic culture. From 1988 to 1997, USAID provided nearly $14 million in funding for the Latin America Journalism Project (LAJP) to strengthen journalism in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. Florida International University launched the project in Miami and then in 1996 ceded its operations to the indigenous Center for Latin American Journalism (CELAP), in Panama.

Some 6,800 journalists were trained during the decade and the LAJP was successful in carving out a training niche among Latino professionals. Although some Latin American journalists viewed it skeptically at first as U.S. public relations, the project had a positive impact on the quality of Central American journalism, according to an assessment done in December 1998 by the Center for Democracy and Governance, USAID. (4)

FIU didn't keep good records or curricula and its textbooks were not ready in time to be of much use, but it helped establish an effective training program, including an annual awards competition, Premios de PROCEPER, which provides incentives for high journalism standards within Central America. A Spanish-language journalism review Pulso del Periodismo, was established. After the training, participants were less willing to accept censorship and were more aware of the importance of strong, independent media serving democracy, the assessors found.

Today Knight Professor Rosental Alves is on the board and a key leader in CELAP is Roberto Eisenman, a courageous journalist who established Panama's best newspaper, La Prensa, and fought against Noriega. However CELAP's board also includes powerful publishers with strong ties to politicians, which has alienated some of the new independent media. There is disagreement about whether CELAP is smart to have brought these powerful publishers into the fold, or less effective because it has been co-opted by them.

LESSONS LEARNED

• Quality-of-journalism projects need to find an appropriate way to engage media owners. This may be a delicate proposition, as noted above. But for the reforms to be instituted in the field, managers and owners need to be on board in some fashion. There also should be more projects specifically directed at media owners.
• One of the best aspects of the CELAP program was the cross-border "alumni" network of trainees. The trainees' impact on the profession was determined by their current professional positions, their links with other organizations, and their willingness to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of journalists.
• There is a demand for more advanced and specialized journalism issue courses: environmental, education, health, women's issues, human rights/social justice, indigenous peoples' rights, and especially economics journalism.
• Ethics training had an impact on reducing corruption in the newsroom.
• Investigative journalism was difficult to promote because of personal safety issues and lack of news organization management support.
• Changes in the law, while necessary, are not sufficient since many laws already on the books are ignored. Training about the existing laws is a good idea, as well as eliminating archaic laws that suppress free media.
• The CELAP project had a major impact on news writing, balance, depth, collecting, editing and technical production in Central America.
• The training had no impact on journalism salaries or media profitability.

MEDIA OWNERSHIP: THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE

Daunting obstacles remain for those hoping to improve the overall quality of journalism in Central and Latin America. Corruption and low salaries are major detriments. Security threats, drug trafficking, the continued influence of military and authoritarian regimes, and censorship pressure applied by political as well as commercial interests, hamper the practice of journalism.

The USAID assessment team expressed special concern about an ownership pattern of vertically integrated media in Central America. (3) In Honduras, for example, six families control most of the nation's media outlets, providing president Carlos Flores Facusse favorable access denied his opponents. In Guatemala, less than a dozen families control almost all of the country's media outlets. Individual entrepreneurs also control the television industry there, with virtual monopolies. (6)

There and elsewhere in Latin America, reporters may not be encouraged by their owners to write critically about business and economic concerns, because "those businesses ultimately have social, political or economic links to conglomerates that own the reporter's outlet," the USAID assessment found. "This system allows freedom of expression for media owners rather than their employees. In such a system, unless owners have a true interest in improving their profession instead of simply maximizing profits, reporters cannot hope for a change of conditions." (7)

Economic security for independent media is, therefore, a paramount concern. John Lavine of Northwestern's MMC recounts how the head of a Paraguay paper who had just come out of prison appeared at one of MMC's presentations. He said "In the U.S., freedom of the press and all those things matter. They are able to do what they need to do. Here, the first thing is we must be an independent business. If we're not, the government, or the church, or the dictator will own us, and all the laws in the world won't be able to help." (8)

There are some encouraging changes to build on. Investigative reporting by the independent print press has played an important role in the downfall of some corrupt leaders. (9)

LATIN AMERICA LESSONS LEARNED AND UNMET NEEDS

Better coordination is needed. Among American media assistance efforts, there is unfortunate redundancy in training for investigative, business and economic reporting. More coordination would be beneficial to funders as well as the journalists on the ground. (10) There are many isolated efforts, which fail to complement each other. (11) U.S. Embassy programs also are sporadic and uncoordinated.

ICFJ's important IJNet website needs to be beefed up to serve as truly up-to-date clearinghouse tracking all of the U.S.-Latin American media support efforts, including media laws, training tip sheets, links and a means for cross-border Latin America networking.

Before its international programs were cancelled, The Freedom Forum had been giving $50,000 a year to IJNet.

ICFJ's Libertad website (http://www.icfj.org/libertad-prensa) is part of the Medios y Libertad de Expresion project funded by MTF. It tracks Latin America freedom of expression issues, media laws, and tips from training. It offers links and a listserv for cross-border Latin America networking. This bilingual English-Spanish site should be expanded into Portuguese as well.

Assessments of journalism training programs are needed. USAID's assessment of CELAP is unusual. More of this would help weed out the ineffective programs and support the better ones. The Knight and McCormick Tribune foundations have improved their programs and focus, thanks to systematic evaluation by outside assessors.

Legal advice and paid legal fees, as well as an international spotlight are needed to help journalists being harassed by punitive politicians. It is too easy to use outmoded laws against journalists. The work of CPJ and IFEX, as well as the Libertad interactive listservs, are important here. A larger, collaborative effort on media law and policy could be helpful.

Local partners are essential. If you have to have USAID "parachute" journalism trainers, then at least have follow-up via local partners. This improves relevance, credibility and impact.

• Expand the program beyond just the big cities. A country-by-country focus may be more effective than a regional focus, depending on the program.
• There should be a broadcast version of IAPA to go beyond print and help television and radio journalists. Bring print and electronic journalists together more, perhaps including cross-platform Internet training as well.
• More publications, books and case studies are needed, but they should be culturally relevant to the journalists using them in each country. Knight fellow Ken Dermota wrote a Manual for Investigative Journalists in Chile that he now would like to expand for other countries.
• The teachers need to be taught. Establish a program for faculty to visit newspapers. Support the jobs and curriculum for full-time, trained faculty. Invite journalism professors to the media trainings.
• Be careful of alliances with local universities. Some are simply too old-fashioned and others may be overly competitive and may splinter the journalism community.

LATIN AMERICA COUNTRY REPORTS (12)

ARGENTINA:

Argentina and Chile have a long tradition of newspapers with good writing. But Argentina's downward economic and political spiral has created new challenges for the press, and investigative journalists continue to suffer harassment. Periodistas in Argentina offers a vigorous defense for free press, denunciations of violence against journalists, etc. Contact: Horacio Verbitsky, who recently received an award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. The daily newspaper El Liberal of Santiago del Estero is facing lawsuits filed by four thousand women affiliated with the ruling party, seeking $19 million for material that already had been published by another paper. A government invasion of privacy suit against journalists from Clarin, the national daily, was dismissed but one against NOTICIAS, the weekly newsmagazine, which reported President Menem's extramarital affair, was upheld. Periodistas and CPJ filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington. (13)

BRAZIL:

This huge country has 80,000 journalists in 31 chapters of the National Federation of Journalists' Union. Michael Cowan, August 2000 Knight fellow reported that Brazil has a stable, democratically elected government, and the economy is settling down, but there still is an unemployment rate of 20%, illiteracy rate of 30%, with street children and urban violence. News media are "healthy and robust," Cowan said. "The days of censorship are a thing of the past, investigative journalism is alive and well. A variety of viewpoints are expressed in the nation's major media outlets." Yet all journalists are required to hold university journalism degrees in order to work; media outlets that don't do this risk lawsuits and fines. University programs are primarily taught by faculty who have never worked in the profession. Journalists have been killed in country's isolated interior, after writing about drug traffickers, political corruption. There is no tradition of enterprise reporting or "humanizing" stories so they relate to ordinary people.

CHILE:

Potential local partner organizations: Chile School of Journalism (see above) and Diego Portales University, a private, nonprofit university in Santiago. Ken Dermota was there as Knight fellow through August 2000. He said the practice of journalism has actually deteriorated during the 10 years that have passed since the end of General Augusto Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship. All major news media controlled by the state. President Ricardo Lagos, a Socialist in office for the past two years, is expanding political freedoms and is pushing Congress to repeal an old law punishing journalists for criticizing judges, military commanders or cabinet members. (14) Under those old laws, journalists risk imprisonment by criminal courts for publishing even mundane facts that already are part of the public record.

COLOMBIA:

In Cartagena, the Foundation for a New Iberian-American Journalism was founded by Gabriel Garcia Marques. The President of Colombia is himself a journalist but journalism in Colombia is embattled at best. IAPA reported in October 2001 that seven Colombian journalists were killed in the past six months, in one of the most violent periods the Colombian press has experienced. There also are economic pressures on the media sector, compounding the threats. The best newspaper, El Espectador, has been losing a lot of money and has been reduced from a daily to a weekly. Colombia, once capable of documenting its own abuses, "has shifted to a country incapable of policing and monitoring itself," according to Frank Smyth of CPJ.

COSTA RICA:

Home of the InterAmerican Court of Justice (part of OAS), where cases can be filed to support journalists. At press time, efforts were underway to get the Costa Rican press law to be consistent with the American Convention on Human Rights, which Costa Rica ratified in 1970.

GUATEMALA:

There is an independent press but it is weak economically. Most of the media are owned by a few families, who support the leading politicians. Soros-supported organizations made grants in Guatemala totaling $112,711 in 2000, primarily in media work.

HAITI:

The Soros OSI Foundation's Fondacion Connaissance et Liberte spent $40,000 on media work in 2000.

MEXICO:

It's supposedly a new era in Mexican journalism, with President Vincente Fox announcing he wants to end reporters' political payoffs, and courageous young investigative reporters working for Reforma, La Jornada and El Norte, even at risk to their own lives. Their stories are shorter, more graphic than the traditional long-winded Excelsior. They have good writers and tough editorials, and have run into some problems as a result. (15) Reforma, which now has the largest circulation of any non-tabloid national paper, was founded in 1993 by a big family from Monterrey intent on having an independent, American-style paper (which is seen by some, nevertheless, as a paper of the center-right and PAN party.)

Serious problems remain for print, radio and television journalists. The bureaucracies of Mexico's 31 states and hundreds of cities have not gone along with Fox's reformist approach. Three further problems: Mexican journalists lack fraternal cohesiveness and the older generation of journalists may still expect bribes. Between 150-240 journalists are harassed or attacked each year in Mexico, particularly along the Mexico-U.S. border. (16)

MEXICAN RADIO: AN UNTAPPED RESOURCE

Internews' Peter Lauffer reported that radio is a prime opportunity for civic journalists, as a medium that has yet to be developed fully in Mexico. A powerful radio network and individual indigenous language stations could reach millions of indigenous and illiterate people not served by television or newspapers. Currently they have a pirate radio culture with low signal power stations, like Africa. Civic groups have failed to win permission from the government to broadcast. Commercial radio is not oriented toward providing substantive or balanced news. Most non-commercial radio stations are still run or funded by the state. (17)

TELEVISION: PREFERRED BY MOST MEXICANS

An April 2001 poll published by Reforma found that television is the favorite news medium for Mexican viewers. A quarter of Mexicans have televisions. Mexican television is dominated by Grupo Televisa, which for 50 years has had a monopoly on commercial broadcasting. It still has 80% of the television audience, and is perceived as being a mouthpiece for the formerly entrenched PRI party, which Fox, defeated. The other 20% of the television audience belongs to Grupo Azteca, founded in 1993, which is struggling for survival. Canal 40, which has broken away from Azteca, features several respected journalists and is trying to establish independent news programming for its Valley of Mexico audience. Mexico's 1970's-era broadcast law establishes licensing procedures that, in practice, are widely believed to be political. There is no transparency about the licensing decisions or the financial backers of the licensees. There also is no appeals process. (18)

PRINT AND INTERNET: SERVING THE ELITE

Print is traditionally the most important medium in Mexico, because it is read by the educated elite. It appears that print media is virtually unread by the masses, although new readers are attracted to the new tabloid papers. Estimates of Spanish illiteracy in Mexico are as high as 70%. Internet only reaches about 2% of the Mexican population. Mexican reporters use the Internet to find out what is happening in their own country, reading sites like the US GAO website to see information denied to them locally. (19)

MEXICAN POLICY: NEW LAWS PROPOSED

There is an effort underway for a Mexican freedom of information act. It is supported by Reforma and La Jornada, and academics and human rights activists are working with the Fox administration to draft the legislation. The Fox administration's proposed new press law to replace the punitive 1917 law does not go far enough, according to some media activists. A May 2001 meeting in Oaxaca called "The Right to Information and Democratic Reform" was sponsored by the Universidad Iberoamericana, the Mexican Association of Newspaper Editors, the Foundation for Information and Democracy, the Reporters Fraternity of Mexico and several newspapers. The resulting "Oaxaca Declaration" supports rights to information.

In addition to IRE-Mexico, the indigenous Fundacion Manuel Buendia tries to help journalists in jeopardy. It is headed by Omar Raul Martinez Sanchez, who also is journalism coordinator at Universidad Iberoamericana. He also heads the prestigious Mexican journalism journal, Revista Mexicana de Communicacion. Martinez Sanchez contends that Mexican journalism schools teach only public relations and technical training without discussing journalism or democratic values.

NICARAGUA:

Former President Chamorro's daughter runs the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Fundacion, which is an impressive media institute, according to Whayne Dillehay.

PERU:

Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) (www.geocities.com/ipyspe) in Lima, Peru, monitors attacks on press freedom in the Andean region and provides advocacy and legal support on journalists' behalf. When IPYS provided journalists around the country with a 1-800 number to call in case of an emergency, there was a huge increase in the number of attack cases reported in Peru. IPYS has full time local journalists investigating cases of attacks against journalists, especially in remote regions where they are more common. Knight fellow Mandalit del Barco found that Canal N, Peru's new cable TV station has become crucial to Peruvian journalism. It broke the story of corruption of Peru's spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, which led to fall of Fujimora regime. "Media owners and their political allegiances also changed, becoming more critical of the government, del Barco found." Soros' OSI may be opening a human rights organization in Lima, which presumably would also assist with media work.

VENEZUELA:

Old-fashioned strongman President Hugo Chavez cares more about controlling broadcast than the printed press. His chief political opponent, Caracas Mayor Alfredo de Pena, is a former television talk show host.

KEY MEDIA DEVELOPMENT CONTACTS IN LATIN AMERICA

1. Rosental Alves, University of Texas at San Antonio (rosentalves@mail.utexas.edu).
2. Pedro Armendares, IRE-Mexico (red@dsi.com.mx).
3. Suzanne Bilello in Buenos Aires, Argentina (in transition from Freedom Forum).
4. Luis Botello, Program Director for Latin America, International Center for Journalists (luis@icfj.org).
5. Roberto Eisenmann, CELAP.
6. Elizabeth Fox, Bethesda,Md., respected expert on broadcasting in Latin America, author of new book with Prof. Silvio Weisbord of Rutgers.
7. Maria Cristina Caballero, prize-winning Colombian investigative journalist, former Nieman and Alfred Friendly fellow. She was a 2002 Mason fellow at Harvard (Maria_Caballero@KSG01.harvard.edu).
8. Horacio Verbitsky, Periodistas, Argentina (horacio.verbitsky@attglobal.net ).
9. Omar Raul Martinez Sanchez, Universidad Iberoamericana and Fundacion Manuel Buendia in Mexico.
10. Peter Lauffer, Internews, consultant, Mexico. 1225 Bodega Ave., Bodega Bay, CA 94923, 707-875-8880.