“While 2024 is the biggest election year in world history, 2023 was also the scene of crucial elections, especially in Latin America, where they came to power self-proclaimed predators of press freedom and media plurality, such as Javier Milei in Argentinawho, in a symbolic and worrying act, closed the largest news agency in the country.”
This is how the report “World Press Freedom Classification 2024: journalism, under political pressure” by the international organization Journalists Without Borders begins, which makes a global assessment of the situation, in a year in which half of the population world is called to go to the polls.
The organization has been following Milei’s management since his inauguration and had already stated, in response to the Government’s decision to close the state news agency Télam, that “a hard blow was dealt to the right to information” in Argentina.
Argentina fell 26 places in the ranking that evaluates Press Freedom, from 40 to 66 out of 180, and PSF warned that the arrival to power of President Javier Milei “marks a new and worrying turning point for the guarantee of the right to information in the country”.
Norway leads the ranking, while Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland complete the top 5.
The entity defined Argentina as a country with “significant problems” regarding Freedom of the Press: neighboring countries such as Brazil, Chile and Uruguay are in the same situation.
“On a global scale, a confirmation is imposed: freedom of the press is threatened by the same people who should be its guarantors: the political authorities. Of the five indicators that make up the countries’ scores, the political indicator is the one that drops the most in 2024, with a drop of 7.6 points,” noted the new edition of the World Press Freedom Classification prepared by RSF.
In the case of Argentina, the organization indicated that “the high concentration and opacity of media ownership, polarization, the absence of public policies to guarantee plurality, as well as the precariousness of the practice of journalism constitute the main threats to freedom of the press in Argentina”.
The report adds that “all of this paves the way for pressure from the Government and companies through private and state advertising, and the partisan use of national, provincial and municipal public media.” There is no reference to the national government’s decision to cancel the entire journalistic program.
And in consideration of the new president, the study adds: “The arrival to power of Javier Milei, openly hostile to the press, marks a new and worrying turning point for the guarantee of the right to information in the country.”
Hatred
The report also warns about hate speech: “The promotion of hatred and violence is echoed in media of various tendencies. Delicate social, economic and political issues are kept out of public debate, and the media agenda is highly concentrated in large cities, especially Buenos Aires. The far-right president Javier Milei, elected in 2023, encourages attacks on journalists and attacks to discredit media and reporters critical of his policies.”
