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Laws of Press in IJNet

The Bolivian press dresses for a North American journalist

On June 12, 2007
For James Breiner

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, flame to the press his "hostile number one". And while he encourages the creation of community radioes with financial support of his Venezuelan counterpart, César Chavez, the journalists feel more and more threatened. But as the journalist James Breiner says to us, a grant holder Knight del Centro Internacional for Journalists (ICFJ, for his initials in English), "there is nothing novel in the fact that a president of any country has discrepancies with the means. What stands out before a North American journalist who, in this case, has happened seven months in the country, is the rough tone of the attacks and the tacit and explicit approval of the chief of aggressions against journalists for social movements."

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The most important event in the recent history of Bolivia took place in January, 2006 when the first indigenous chief chosen democratically in the Americas took possession of the presidency of the republic.

Many novel aspects of Evo Morales attracted attention of the foreigners, including his opening in the ancient place of the culture Tiwanaku in traditional clothing. But in Bolivia the same, the important thing there was the promise of change of a worn-out system that the protection of special interests was characterized by an immense breach between the rich ones and the poor, a corruption culture, and not provision of reliable basic services on the subject of education, health, transport and safety, between others.

From the beginning, the President proclaimed his discrepancies with the mass media. In his possession speech he declared that “some journalists or journalists women, permanently satanizaron the social struggle; permanently they were condemning us with lies.

We are submitted by some journalists and mass media to a terrorism mediático, as if we were animal, as if we were wild.” This criticism has recured since then with his declarations in which he affirms that the press is his hostile number one, coming inclusive up to the end of the threat, supposedly joking, that would go to nationalize the newspaper The Reason, which proprietors are Spanish, like punishment for publishing what he considered to be lies.

There is nothing novel in the fact that a president of any country has discrepancies with the means. What stands out before a North American journalist who, in this case, has happened seven months in the country, is the rough tone of the attacks and the tacit and explicit approval of the chief of aggressions against journalists for social movements.

In six months from the December, 2006, 19 journalists were attacked physically while they were doing his work, and there were other threats incidents, in accordance with information of several means. Seemingly, there are no sanctions for a person who beats, stones or hurts a Bolivian journalist.

This form of intimidation, which it includes up to the siege to the head office of a way (the issuing television Unitel in Cochabamba in January), believe an ambience of fear that worries the managers and the directors of the mass media. In a chance survey of some executive high places mediáticos asked on the level of freedom of the press in Bolivia in a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being a finished freedom, qualified it between 5 and 8. Pedro Rivero, the director of the newspaper Duty and ex-president of the National Association of the Press, considers the freedom to be 5, “the means and the Government entered the very tense relation.”

There is no censoring, but there is conflict between the Government and the means. This conflict has reached a grade without precedents in 25 years from the democratic revolution in Bolivia, says Rivero. “The people in declarations have received the message that the persons of the means are his enemies, and it is necessary to boo them, to block them, to stop them,” Rivero said. “He is the President who is indicating it, and it is very dangerous.”

In March, a group of some 200 peasants surrounded the car of three journalists of The Reason, to which days earlier the President Morales had criticized like lying for two released notes. The rabble insulted them, stoned and threatened to burn three journalists, and they stopped them for 11 hours before allowing them to leave. This situation bothered very much to the director of The Reason, Juan Carlos Rocha. The following day, the newspaper announced his readership that “it has taken the decision not to cover those informative facts in which the integrity of his journalists covers danger and where the journalistic exercise is not guaranteed.”

In an interview two months after the decision, Rocha said that it was a very delicate, very polemic “resignation” inside the newspaper because the commitment of the journalists is to cover the facts without importing the danger. For him, the theory is a thing, “but the reality is harder.”  The Reason has not needed to avoid any informative fact under the new politics yet. José Pomacusi, National Chief of Press for Unitel, the television network that he leads in the rating, puts the freedom of the press in 6 to 7 for the absence of full access to the governmental sources and for the aggressions to journalists.

In spite of the attacks of the government to his way like tool of managerial interests, Pomacusi says, “He trusted in the intelligence of the public. I do not worry of that the government does not like Unitel. The people give us a vote of confidence.” He does not foresee a situation similar to that of Venezuela, where the President Hugo Chávez, the narrow ally of the president Morales, cancelled the license of a channel of television that he qualifies like an opponent. “Evo has very much I support in the European countries, and it might not remove a way without cheering up the rancor of his European friends,” Pomacusi said. “Europe is not going to support it.”

But at the same time the president of the republic is arming his own network mediática by means of funds provided by the government of Chávez. Almost every month the Government announces another new radial broadcasting station that is part of the New Native Network, described by the government as a community way to inform and to educate the people who earlier did not have access to means. But there is worry that this network is going to turn into a propaganda tool of the Government.

Another sign of the intentions of the Government is the new Channel logotype 7, the state television network, which suggests the colors and design of the whipala, symbol of the indigenous culture.

From the political point of view, the press always has a lot of power in his aptitude to influence the public; that is to say to the voters. At the same time, in financial terms, the Bolivian mass media seem very weak and very vulnerable to pressure of political and managerial interests. Executives mediáticos complain about the quantity of means that are competing nearly money. The most important source of income for the means is the publicity. Nevertheless, the advertizing cake, which is the total spent by publicity by private enterprises, is the smallest. In accordance with a Teams study I Died, 194 companies that more spend for publicity in Bolivia paid approximately $ 70 millions for the service in 2006. This number itself is inflated because it includes some swap instead of tangible cash.

For comparison, the principal newspaper in my city in the United States, The Baltimore Sun, has income of four times more than the whole of publicity in Bolivia. And it is a newspaper that is not between the biggest.

In Bolivia, this total of $ 70 millions splits between 20 daily newspapers; 55 magazines weekly papers and publications; six networks of national television (160 television stations); and 940 radioes, in accordance with numbers provided by the Observatory of the Means.

Very few are the means that gain money, say executives mediáticos. It is said that many means proprietors use them to protect or to advance his other managerial or political interests. Between the big newspapers, it is said that only

Duty and The Reason are profitable, and Unitel between the television broadcasting stations. Supposedly the rest scarcely they achieve the balance or lose money. Nevertheless, available exact numbers are not. This situation means that many means have weaknesses in terms of the number of employed journalists, of the level of preparation of these journalists (for the low wages and long labor day, many young journalists leave the profession for more profitable careers), and of the available technology in the writing rooms.  What causes another worry is the small number of advertisers for every way. When an advertiser represents an important percentage of all the income of a way, the proprietor is going to pay attention to the opinions about that client. This situation is more worrying when it is taken into consideration that the government itself is an important advertiser in many means.  The government says that it spent $ 700.000 for publicity in the first eight months of his management in 2006, and there are estimations that the number is much higher. Up to Unitel, the television network satanizada for the President and his party, the Movement to the Socialism, receives announcements of the government, although Pomacusi says that that does not constitute a significant total for the broadcasting station. There  are no concrete cases if other means could get any pressure across the publicity retirement for a government that feels bothered by the coverage.

The surprising thing there is the quantity of good journalism that it is possible to see in spite of these obstacles. Really, to the eyes of this foreigner, the Bolivian press, especially the printed press, seems capable and enterprising. It is possible to see that the press has kept on giving wide coverage of many topics of interest for the public. Impressive has been the coverage of facts of corruption in the Migration and in the sale of guarantees for work places in the Government; of the undue reduction of soldiers' wages for the authorities of the Armed forces; of the errors and inconsistencies in the petroleum contracts; and of the disaster of the floods caused by The Child, between many other topics. Impressive also are the strong opinions expressed on the publishing pages that keep on demanding standard high places of execution of the government and his officials, and they keep on demanding standard high places of the ethics and the conduct.  Roberto Méndez, publisher of the politics for the newspaper New Day in Santa Cruz, is a good example. It was in the way of the conflict in Cochabamba in January between the social movements and the police that was trying to protect the offices of the prefecture.

To avoid the stones thrown by the rabble, Méndez should have looked for refuge behind a prop and finally escape to a surer place. Two persons died and other tens were hurt during the conflict, but Méndez does not complain about the danger. “It is my work,” he says. “This is what I chose. The readership is not interested by that,” referring to the risks.

For his experience of 21 years like journalist, he has learned to look after. It can describe, for example, like avoiding the effects of the tear gas (it is necessary to put one in the soil because the gas rises). A journalist must protect the body, says, “because there is a family, a writing and a public who depends on him.” Sometimes, to look after means to support certain distance of the facts, but for Méndez, what more bothers him of the current relations between the press and the Government is the absence of access to the sources and the information. Nevertheless, this obstacle does not prevent from obtaining his first fruits quota. Méndez is one of many Bolivian journalists who serve well to the public in this key moment in the history of Bolivia. Now the people wish the systems and the worn-out institutions to change, although there is no agreement on how they must change, and the roll of the press in explaining the facts and the alternatives is more and more important. It seems that, in spite of many challenges and difficulties that the Bolivian press faces, it still has the capacity and the will to inform well his public.

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James Breiner has been a president and publisher of the weekly paper Baltimore Business Journal from 1995. Previously he was a publisher of Business First of Columbus (OH)) for seven years, where it gained awards along with his team for his reportages investigativos and his coverage of business topics.

For major information visit (in English) http://www.knight-international.org/27breiner.htm