Argentina fell 26 places in the ranking that evaluates press freedom and the organization in charge of preparing the statistics warned that the coming to power of President Javier Milei “marks a new and worrying turning point for the guarantee of the right to information in the country.”
Through its report “World Press Freedom Classification 2024: the dangers of the deception industry”, the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) placed Argentina in 66th place out of a total of 180 countries: the ranking It is led by Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland.
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 Reporters Without Borders.
Regarding 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 exercise of journalism constitute the main threats to press freedom in Argentina.”
“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,” RSF analyzed.
And he added: “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.”
In the previous edition of the Reporters Without Borders ranking, Argentina had obtained position number 40: that is, it has now fallen 26 places.
Two days before the libertarian’s inauguration as head of the Casa Rosada, RSF had stated that it would follow Milei’s mandate “closely” because it considered that his “aggressiveness towards the press is a warning sign.”
Then, in response to the Government’s decision to close the state news agency Télam, the organization had stated that “a hard blow was dealt to the right to information” in Argentina.
In its latest report, Reporters Without Borders warned that “the exercise of plurality is conditioned by deficits in public policies and a high concentration” and also pointed to the fact that “in recent decades, political confrontation has had a “direct reflection in the media sector, with an impoverishment in the quality of analysis and information.”
“The promotion of hatred and violence finds echo 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 in Buenos Aires. The president right-wing extremist Javier Milei, elected in 2023, encourages attacks on journalists and attacks to discredit media outlets and reporters critical of his politics. His supporters spread it widely,” he complained.
After highlighting that “more subtle attempts at silencing persist, such as economic pressure and the abuse of civil lawsuits” against journalists, RSF expressed that “the Argentine press is affected by the persistent economic difficulties of the last decade, which have made the employment and resources”.
Finally, the report stated that “reporters are exposed to being the target of intimidation by criminal organizations (drug trafficking, human trafficking, police mafias, etc.) and police violence when they cover demonstrations.”
Source: Argentine News
