End to Dictatorship Media Law in Argentina

[Andronex]

Like the United States, media laws in Argentina favour big corporations over small community groups. But this changed recently when Argentina passed a media law which will radically transform media ownership regulations. Senate approved the bill, which could open the airwaves to community groups with a 44 to 24 vote. Media conglomerates have been fighting the bill in an attempt to preserve their control over news and information. The passage was met with celebrations outside of congress, where thousands of government supporters, union representatives, human rights groups and artists converged in support of the law.

This law overturns dictatorship era legislation which limited media ownership to private corporations. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner presented the law in June. At a televised conference at the government palace, the president outlined the project: “Today the media is controlled mostly by private commercial groups. The bill will change this. One third of licenses will be for commercial groups, a third for government and public use, and a third for non-governmental organizations. Freedom of press can’t be confused with freedom for private media owners.”

The law was spearheaded by the Coalition for Democratic Broadcasting, a coalition of more than 300 groups, including unions, community media organizations, and human rights groups like the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. For more than two years the coalition acted as an advisory committee to develop the bill.

Media in the Dictatorship

This is the first attempt to revise broadcasting legislation since 1980, when a law passed by the military dictatorship banned community associations from accessing broadcast licenses. Dictator Jorge Rafael Videla sanctioned the law, which guaranteed private media holders large profits, promised support for the dictatorship from media outlets, and silenced journalists from reporting on the systematic genocide taking place in the nation. During the dictatorship 84 journalists were disappeared and 12 were assassinated, adding to the long list of over 30,000 disappeared by the bloody junta.

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