Clarin claims that the government has set out to gag the media, to shut them up on account of unwanted criticism. However, Sen. Nicolas Fernandez, a supporter of the bill (and no relation to the president) pointed out that nothing in the new bill regulates content.
(PATAGONIA, Argentina) - If you think Barack Obama has trouble with Fox News, President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina has more trouble with Clarin, the biggest media group in Argentina. Like Fox in the US, Clarin has taken its role as watchdog very seriously.
Clarin has used its numerous TV and radio and newspaper outlets to toss charges of corruption and stupidity at a government that it is bitterly ideologically opposed to.
The relationship between the Argentine media giant and its government may be oddly similar to the current Fox /Obama debate, but the government’s response in Argentina is quite different. Rather than politely criticizing oppositional media as biased, President Fernandez has played hardball.
Everyone knows that what makes media criticism effective is size. With enough stations and newspapers pounding away at the same themes round the clock, the public tends to believe the country is being run straight to hell by a gang of idiots.
The Argentine government’s solution to that problem has been to cut the big media giants down to size. Thus, the Argentine senate just passed a law that reduces the number of outlets that one media corporation can control and re-allocates broadcast licenses to a broader variety of groups, both public and private.
Is this government control or democratization of the media? It depends on who you ask.
Clarin claims that the government has set out to gag the media, to shut them up on account of unwanted criticism. However, Sen. Nicolas Fernandez, a supporter of the bill (and no relation to the president) pointed out that nothing in the new bill regulates content.
Image: clarin.com
Clarin can still claim that the government is corrupt and illegitimate without fear of censorship. What Clarin cannot do, Fernandez advised, is speak as loudly as it did before. Since its number of licenses will be reduced, the Clarin message will no longer dominate the public airwaves.
The government plans to set up a commission something like the FCC in the US that will allocate and renew broadcast rights on a proportional basis. So many will be alloted to private media groups, so many to public interest organizations and the rest to local community radio and TV. The folks at many local public interest organizations see this as a democratization of the media.
The old law, they say, came about during the military dictatorship in the 70’s and simply allowed the government to sell off licenses to the higest bidder. This free market approach had put the media in the hands of those with the free cash to buy it and government intervention now could return the airwaves to the people.
Foreign media groups like Bloomberg and Reuters have characterized Argentina’s new law as anti-business. Clarin and Uno, Argentina’s other big media group, will have to divest under the new law.
Radio and TV outlets and newspapers will have to be sold and the only legal buyers will be community groups who lack the cash to pay a fair price. Foreign media groups are prohibited under this law from buying up Argentine airwaves. Clarin and Uno will not only be quieter but will be a lot poorer.
This new law was pushed through a lame-duck congress that is due to be replaced by a new more conservative body in January. Media giants opposed to it have vowed to get the next congress to rescind the law before this change can get off the ground.
Should that effort fail, they will take the issue to the courts before giving up their rights to the public airwaves. They face an uphill battle to reverse this new law, especially the provision that establishes the FCC-like commission.
Putting control of communications media in the hands of a government agency has great democratic potential. When the elected representatives of the people are handing out the keys, the process can be fair and equitable.
The US experience, however, has shown that government watchdogs like the FCC can be just as overly-friendly to giant media moguls as the Argentine dictators were when they helped set up Clarin and Uno back in the 70’s.
The Bush administration used the FCC effectively in the last decade to promote and strengthen big media groups like Fox and Clear Channel. Barack Obama’s response to the loud Fox News criticisms could extend to how the FCC manages the licensing of Fox and the other big corporations or he could just stick to politely criticizing the lords of the airwaves.
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