Journalism

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Journalism

Latin American journalism is complicated by the tension that exists between the quality of the work and the strategies employed to deal with competitors and enemies of the press. In 2005, the United Nations estimated that almost 10 percent of the region's citizens are illiterate and only 83 percent of primary students finish the schooling cycle. Even though millions do not buy a newspaper, it is a daily habit for many to read the headlines on the front pages of publications in kioskos (cabinets that hold newspapers and magazines). Radio and television have reached more incomunicados (those beyond communication), but many who are exposed to broadcast media are also tabloid readers. The print medium has had a greater long-term historical impact by influencing opinion makers but is losing that power. The mainstream press, which represents the social and economic interests of its owners, often challenged in the twentieth century by dictators, is under pressure of the powers that be (poderes fácticos) such as corporations, populist politicians, and the drug lords in the early twenty-first century.

The first printing press was set up in New Spain (Mexico) in 1535, soon after the Spanish Conquest and a century before the establishment of the first printing press in the British North American colonies. This first press was used primarily to produce religious material to support the Roman Catholic Church. An Italian citizen brought the first printing press to the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1583.

Under close government control, however, the early presses did not print newspapers until the eighteenth century. The first newspaper in Spanish America was La Gazeta de México y Noticias de Nueva España, founded in Mexico City in 1722; the first daily paper did not appear until 1805. The early press reported on religious and commercial activities, but as time passed, journalism entered into a vituperative political phase.

The movements for independence from Spain between 1809 and 1825 saw the birth of patriot propaganda organs, such as El Despertador Americano (The American Alarm Clock) in Mexico, Aurora de Chile (Dawn) in Chile, and El Peruano (The Peruvian) in Peru. El Peruano suspended publication in 1880 during a war against Chile, but it restarted several years later and was still being published into the twenty-first century. As the nineteenth century progressed, newspapers became a source of information for the masses.

In Chile, for example, El Ferrocarril (The Railroad, 1855–1911) was the first newspaper supported mainly by advertising. Likewise, in Mexico the founding by Rafael Reyes Spíndola of El Imparcial (1896), which sold for one centavo, removed the press from dependence on political support by widening circulation and thus increasing advertising revenues. Newspapers were also an important medium for fledgling parties, such as La Vanguardia for the Argentine Socialist Party.

As an example of the power of the press in early twentieth-century Latin America, U.S. journalist James Creelman's interview with the Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911), published in Pearson's Magazine in 1908, contained Díaz's assertion that he would not run for an eighth term in 1910. Intended only for foreign consumption, the interview was circulated by the underground press in Mexico, which set the political pot bubbling and led to revolution. In the aftermath of the revolution, some conservative Mexico City newspapers, seeking to preserve privilege, undermined the fragile democratic government of Francisco I. Madero (1911–1913).

In Bolivia, the distance between the press and the people was huge. The Big Three tin-mine owners controlled the three leading newspapers until the advent of La Calle (The Street, 1936–1946). Politicized by the disastrous Chaco War with Paraguay (1932–1935), La Calle supported the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Nationalist Revolutionary Movement), which started reforms in Bolivia in 1952.

In Cuba, the corrupt press under Fulgencio Batista (1934–1959) accepted $450,000 a month in bribes to support the dictator. After Fidel Castro gained power in 1959, he instituted state control of the press. Granma became the voice of the Cuban Communist Party, and therefore of the state, and Prensa Latina started operations as the Third World's first international news agency.

Other newspapers strove to be independent. In Uruguay, El Día championed the progressive programs of President José Batlle y Ordóñez. La Prensa of Buenos Aires, founded by Ezequiel Paz in 1869 and the best known Latin American newspaper before its closure by Juan Perón in 1951, refused to accept subscriptions from government employees and vowed not to discuss the private lives of public figures. Bartolomé Mitre founded Argentina's influential La Nación.

The liberal Excélsior of Mexico, however, was not able to remain exempt from the wrath of the official party Partido Revolucionario Institucional. Founded in 1917, and one of the few successful newspaper cooperatives in the world, Excélsior was edited by Julio García Scherer until the government of Luis Echeverría engineered his ouster in 1976. Neither Excélsior nor La Prensa of Argentina has recovered its international prestige.

In Brazil, during the early Portuguese colonial period, there was no printing press or periodicals, since prohibitions against the press were rigorously enforced. The first Brazilian newspaper was the weekly A Gazeta do Río de Janeiro, established in 1808.

The nineteenth century saw the emergence of such distinguished journalists as Joaquim María Machado de Assís (1839–1908), who along with Rui Barbosa (1849–1923) combined journalism with literature. Cuban José Martí did the same for Mexican, American, and Venezuelan newspapers beginning in 1880.

In modern times, giants of the Brazilian press such as O Estado de São Paulo and Jornal do Brasil opposed the reformist president João Goulart (1961–1964), contributing to his overthrow and ushering in twenty-one years of military rule. But once censorship was lifted in 1978, Brazilian newspapers were instrumental in opposing continued military domination and fostering a return to democracy in 1985.

But nowhere was the dispute between government and press more sharply etched than in Chile during the freely elected presidency of socialist Salvador Allende (1970–1973). While Allende granted freedom of the press, the opposition press undermined his government and made possible the military coup of 11 September 1973. El Mercurio (founded 1827) accepted $1,650,000 from the Central Intelligence Agency to wage verbal warfare against Allende. His successor, dictator General Augusto Pinochet, did not permit freedom of expression during his sixteen-year rule.

There were other approaches toward the relationship between government and the press. In Peru a group of military officers who took power in 1968 seized the eight leading newspapers in 1974. They promised to turn these dailies over to various sectors of the people, but this never happened. An elected civilian government returned the papers to their owners in 1980.

Journalism is a prestigious field in Latin America, although underpaid reporters often hold two or more jobs, sometimes unaware of possible conflicts of interest. They are also susceptible to bribes, particularly in remote areas, far from the main capitals.

Government harassment of the press can be fierce. Some 98 newsmen were killed in Argentina during the Dirty War (1976–1983), and some 400 fled the country. Brazilian newsmen also suffered abuses during dictatorship in the 1970s. Journalists also have been on the front lines, sometimes paying with their lives, in the drug wars of Colombia and the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) Maoist terrorist activities in Peru.

Direct censorship, such as that wielded by the Sandinistas of Nicaragua against La Prensa in the 1980s, is rare because media watchdogs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) disseminate alerts immediately. More insidious, however, is auto-censura (self-censorship) by which governments or corporations indirectly intimidate journalists, who might not be aware of their adversarial potential against those who rule.

The first journalism school in Latin America was created by the Círculo de Periodistas (Circle of Journalists) in La Plata, Argentina, in 1934, but widespread instruction in the field did not exist until after World War II. In 1994, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez created Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (New Iberoamerican Journalism Foundation), currently the main journalism training organization for practitioners in the region. Based in Cartagena, it promotes quality journalism through workshops and the presentation of annual Nuevo Periodismo (New Journalism) awards. In 2004, there were 1026 departments, schools, and communication programs in 22 countries across Latin America. Most of them offer journalism as a career path; as an example, Brazil had 297 courses recognized with the title "Journalism," while Chile had more than forty public and private universities teaching journalism courses. Investigative journalism (periodismo de investigación) started reporting on corruption, violence, and drug trafficking in the 1980s. Investigative journalism often seeks to make state institutions accountable, especially in weak democracies. There are several national and independent investigative journalism networks that maintain vigilance. Some stories have had strong political impact, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, México, and Peru.

The Ecuadorian newspaper Hoy in 1994 and Peruvian weekly magazine Caretas in 1995 offered on-line versions of their publications before the New York Times and El País (Spain) announced their Internet versions.

Blogs (diarios de referencia) have been an online feature for leading newspapers since 2005. The authors of the blogs can be either staff or nonstaff journalists. Ricardo Noblat, a Brazilian journalist who independently started a blog, had his work co-opted by the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo because it successfully exposed government corruption. In January 2007, Noblat's abandoned the Estadão (a colloquial name for the Sao Paulo paper) and moved to O Globo, the most important in Rio de Janeiro.

Such literary periodicals as Etiqueta Negra, based in Lima (Peru), and Gatopardo, based in Bogotá (Colombia), have contributors from Latin America, United States, and Europe and combine writing with innovative design.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Good historical overviews are Gustavo Adolfo Otero, El periodismo en América (1946); and Michael Brian Salwen and Bruce Garrison, Latin American Journalism (1991). Significant treatments of the Latin American press in the twentieth century are Robert N. Pierce, Keeping the Flame: Media and Government in Latin America (1979); and Marvin Alisky, Latin American Media: Guidance and Censorship (1981). Elizabeth Fox, ed., Media and Politics in Latin America: The Struggle for Democracy (1988), gives more attention to radio and television. For critical national studies, see Juan Gargurevich, Historia de la prensa peruana 1594–1990, Lima: La Voz Ediciones, 1991; Jerry Knudson, Bolivia: Press and Revolution, 1932–1964 (1986); The Chilean Press During the Allende Years, 1970–73 (1986); Nelson Werneck Sodré, A História da Imprensa no Brasil (1966). Twenty-first century journalism analyses include Catherine Conaghan, Deception in the Public Sphere, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006; Silvio Waisbord, Watchdog Journalism in South America: News, Accountability and Democracy, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.