Press freedom, Peru style

Peru today has seen some pretty blatant press gagging, all due to the strange episode we at IKN covered on Sunday. In that post we explained how President Alan Garcia had slapped a young man in the face after the 25 year old had called him "corrupt" (truth hurts, it seems).

Over the last couple of days, Twobreakfasts has tried to deny it all and has even said that he did confront and shout down the young man, but didn't hit him. However, tonight it seems like his enthusiasm for keeping his lie at the forefront of the issue has led to some dramatic program changing on Peru's TV.

First up, the journalistic team of the weeknightly show "Enemigos Publicos" (Public Enemies) has reportedly resigned, because after getting an exclusive interview with the man slapped their report has been yanked off the air due to a decision by "a high-ranked director" of the TV station that runs the show.

Now, just a few minutes ago we hear that top-rated nightly show "El Francotirador" (The Sharpshooter) starring author and potential Presidential candidate Jaime Bayly has been pulled off the air as of tonight and in a definitive way (it was contracted to run until December) after the Francotirador team met with station chiefs this afternoon. The reason for the sudden decision to stop the show is not yet clear and in the past few days there have been some pointed remarks made by Bayly towards the channel's owner, but if you believe that today's decision has nothing to do with García's slapfest and the resignation of the rival show's reporting team, then I have a bridge you may be interested in purchasing.

In a corrupt Banana Republic, the country needs no laws to gag the press. All that needs to be done is a phone call from politico to millionaire media owner. The truth is out there, but the public don't get to hear about it until it's too late. Two national TV shows disrupted tonight because Alan García is a liar. 

Pisco sours served. The end.

Excellent note on media gagging in Honduras from inside Honduras by Ioan Grillo of Global Post

Ioan Grillo is no mug as a journo, either.

He's a Time Magazine contributor, does TV and used to cover Mexico with AP and the Houston Chronicle.


I'm not pasting the whole thing as it's only fair that you click through and read at source.

It's fine stuff from start to finish, with intelligent analysis and nuance.


Here's how it starts:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — At the Channel 36 TV station in this sweltering capital, the buzzing, hectic atmosphere of a news network has been replaced by an ominous silence.

The doors are held shut with huge industrial padlocks, bored-looking soldiers stand on the sidewalk and the journalists are nowhere to be seen.

Since taking power Sunday after a coup against elected-president Manuel Zelaya, the new administration has shut down a major TV station, several radio stations and a newspaper. It has also cut off signals from some international networks, including Venezuela-based Telesur.

Meanwhile, those media outlets still running heap praise on the regime of Roberto Micheletti. “Defending the Constitution,” blears the headline in one newspaper reporting the consolidation of the new government. “Zelaya Out, We Want Peace,” says another.

Such control of the media is perhaps a predictable development from a government that came to power after the elected head of state was forced out of his home at gunpoint and taken on a plane to neighboring Costa Rica.

But the media battle over the Honduras coup also reflects larger news-related issues as leftist governments have risen to power in the region.

Longstanding commercial networks controlled by wealthy families have often had head-on collisions with leftist leaders, who accuse them of undermining their governments.

In reaction, business interests accuse stations controlled by leftist presidents of demonizing the rich and dividing nations along class lines.

“The media across Latin America has become much more polarized in recent years. There is more of an atmosphere of saying, “You have to be with us or against us,” said Elan Reyes, president of Honduras’ journalist association.

In power, the left-leaning Zelaya had a fiery relationship with the dominant TV channels in Honduras, which are controlled by some of the nation’s richest families.

When they criticized him for raising the minimum wage by more than 50 percent, saying he was clobbering business, he lashed back, alleging that they were part of an “elite group” of oligarchs who CONTINUES HERE

Bagua: The stinking hypocrisy of English language media coverage in South America

Imagine the sandal and headlines if Hugo Chávez closed a radio station in Venezuela just days after it spoke out against the government's position on a hot topic?

What kind of fuss would the biased jerks (sometimes known as 'reporters') filling your head with bullshit about LatAm make if Correa closed a radio station that had, just a week earlier, informed people about the massacre being carried out by national police on its local population and bravely bucked the trend of local media silence on what was really happening?

Consider the ruckus that the pathetic, corporate lapdogs spoonfeeding you news would be eager to create if Evo Morales closed a media channel by finding some non-existent technicality and rushing through paperwork.

And now consider that the only English language coverage of an enormous story in Peru about the sudden and totally unjustified closure of Peru's Radio La Voz de Bagua can be found in the marginal independent website 'Living In Peru' (a site that's normally so pro-everything-Peru it's virtually unreadable)?

You want total violation of freedom of speech and gagging of the media? Forget Venezuela and come to Peru, because not only can you do it at a stroke of a pen but you can get away with it, thanks to corporate media's hypocritical silence. Reuters? Bloomberg? AP? AFP? New York Times? Financial Times? Dow Jones Newswires? Washington Post? LA Times? The Guardian? NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING, despite having lazy , self-serving hacks crawling all over the continent.

Here's the beginning of the Living In Peru article, please click through for the rest:

Peru's Ministry of Transports and Communication has officially closed the local Radio Station La Voz de Utcubamba (in the Amazonian Region).

According to Carlos Flores, spokesman for La Voz de Utcubamba, the station has all its legal licenses, permits and paperwork “in order” since 13th March 2007.

However, the aforementioned Ministry issued a closure order against the radio station (official number 211-2009-MTC) alleging that it had not “sent the documentation regarding licenses for some of the station’s equipment”.

This is the only radio station that has transmitted live coverage of the Bagua conflict, providing a voice through its microphones to the people of Bagua CONTINUES HERE

Translation: "Do not discriminate. The deaths of police and indigenous are equally as painful. The jungle is not a battleground."

Peruvian Journalists Reporting on the Amazon Conflict Threatened by Authorities

Geovani Acate (for it is he)

You want government threatening reporters to shut up or "have problems"? You want state control of media? Forget the rest, Peru is still the best. A direct translation of the first part of this report in Peru's CNR

Reports of Continued Threats Against Journalists in Amazonia

Yurimaguas-Loreto, 09/06/2009 (CNR): Despite the partial re-establishment of calm in the Amazonian conflict zone, reporters from diverse media are receiving threats to stop them from filing reports at a national level, the director of Radio TV Oriente, Geovani Acate, denounced today.

He explained that on his return to the city of Tarapoto in San Martin, he met with TV reporters who told him they had received telephone calls demanding that they stop informing about the Amazon protest.

"For example, the case of Jerry Izquierdo, cameraman at TV Oriente, who even had people going to his house who talked with his wife. They warned her he should stop sending reports to media companies in Lima because they could have problems (later)".

According to Acate, the authors of the threats are presumably police agents of the DIROES special operations unit.

CONTINUES HERE (Spanish language)