Ayn Rand on the Front Page of Ecuador’s Major Newspaper
El Universo, the newspaper with the largest circulation and the paper that publishes my weekly column, ran a mostly blank front page today that features only this quote from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged:
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.
This quote is from Francisco D’Anconia’s speech on “The Meaning of Money” which you can read here. (I used it in my column last month.) How did Rand’s quote get there? It’s a response to the latest and most prominent attack on freedom of the press in Ecuador and Latin America.
In less than four months the Ecuadorian courts, known for being slow, resolved the specious lawsuit President Rafael Correa filed against op-ed writer and editor Emilio Palacio, the directors of El Universo and the newspaper itself for libeling the country’s president. According to Correa, Palacio slandered him in this op-ed (in Spanish), and the newspaper and its directors “contributed” to committing the supposed crime. Incidentally, this court has had five different judges overseeing this case since February; the last one came in on Monday and issued his judgment yesterday, minutes before his authority expired.
The court’s decision sentences the directors of El Universo and Emilio Palacio to three years in jail and orders them to pay a total of $30 million to the President. The judge also ordered that the newspaper company pay an additional $10 million to President Correa.
This decision sets a dangerous precedent of making third parties responsible for what an individual says. It is a clear act of intimidation of all independent media outlets and of the citizens of Ecuador. Even though this is not the first blow to freedom of expression during this government, it certainly is the most radical given the context. On May 7th, a referendum gave the President unprecedented power to essentially pack the courts. Soon, the entire judiciary will be on the long list of state institutions captured or co-opted by the executive (including the constitutional court, the electoral authority, and the national assembly, among others).
Once the judiciary is completely captured and after this historic decision, we can expect more self-censorship or more people sued/jailed for expressing their opinions, or a combination of both. It is a harsh blow against liberty in our country, but a logical outcome of Correa’s populist push to centralize ever more economic and other power in his own hands.
R.I.P. Bill Monroe, a First Amendment Champion
Bill Monroe, who was moderator for NBC’s Meet the Press for about 10 years, has died at 90. The Washington Post does a fine job with his long career, from his pro-civil-rights journalism in Lousiana in the 1950s to his years with NBC and Meet the Press.
I want to draw attention to his longtime advocacy of extending the First Amendment to broadcasting. Actually, I’m sure he thought that the First Amendment did cover all forms of the news media — but he knew that Congress and the courts didn’t see it that way, so he wanted an explicit amendment to make that clear. Because his articles on this topic were published in the pre-Internet Dark Ages (yes, children, there are great ideas not online), I can’t link to any of them.
He spoke at the Cato Institute in 1984 on the topic:
The First Amendment sets up a clear-cut independence of press from government as the journalistic principle most vital to the American people. But the existing regulatory approach to broadcasting offers exactly the opposite formula: government guidance and government rules to protect the American people from independent journalism. The First Amendment idea and the regulation idea are mortal enemies.
And in 2007 he briefly reprised the argument in the letters column of the Washington Post, concluding:
Broadcasters are also open to government pressure through the Federal Communications Commission, whose members are appointed by the president. Newspapers are specifically protected against government interference by the granite wall known as the First Amendment.
When the present form of broadcast regulation was set up early in the previous century, nobody understood what powerful instruments of news and information would evolve from the primitive radio stations of that day. Now that we do understand it, we can repair that historic mistake. We can extend the clear, stirring language of the First Amendment to equal protection for freedom of the electronic media. The problem of allocating broadcast licenses does not have to cost the American people the benefit of free broadcasting.
R.I.P.
The Kirchners Go After the Newspapers in Argentina
Argentina’s power couple (President Cristina Fernández and her husband and former president Néstor Kirchner) took their fight against the country’s major newspapers one step further today when the government released a report that might ultimately give it control of the company that distributes paper to the newspapers.
The government report targets Papel Prensa, a private company that belongs to a group controlled by Clarín and La Nación, Argentina’s major daily newspapers, and that distributes paper to 170 newspapers all over the country regardless of their editorial line and ideology.
The government claims that the previous owners of Papel Prensa sold the company back in 1976 under pressure from the military junta that then ruled Argentina. The report says that the government will sue the board members of both newspapers for “crimes against humanity” and “illegal purchase” of Papel Prensa. It also brings up charges of financial irregularities and unfair competition in the distribution of paper.
Both Clarín and La Nación vehemently deny the charges, pointing out that in the 27 years under democratic governments, Papel Prensa has never been impugned in the way it was acquired back in 1976. They claim this is a plan from the Kirchners to take over the company, and thus extend government control over the distribution of the newspapers main input: paper.
This is not the first time that the government has targeted Papel Prensa. Two weeks ago, the Commerce Secretary, Guillermo Moreno, stormed the company’s board meeting wearing boxing gloves and a helmet, shouting “you won’t vote here.” Last Thursday, Moreno, along with 10 others, broke into the offices of Papel Prensa shouting “I’m the owner” while trying to take over offices and desks.
Even though they no longer control Congress, the Kirchners have found a way to get what they want largely because of the divided and weak opposition. However, they might be pushing the envelope in picking such a contentious fight in a country where freedom of the press is still valued.
The Ecuadorian Government’s Campaign against the Free Press
The World Cup is over but not the Ecuadorian government’s propaganda campaign vilifying the free press.
For those Ecuadorians who don’t have Direct TV, but only have cable TV or the local network channels, the only place to have watched the much-awaited matches was on one of the state-owned TV stations and with constant state propaganda. (You can watch the videos depicting the private press as a snake or as shooting bullets coming out of the TV here, here, here and here.)
When I say constant, I might be understating the frequency: according to Infomedia — a media monitoring company— during the weekend of June 18-20 these ads were broadcasted 414 times for a total of 7,988 seconds or 133 minutes.
To make matters worse, the ads continue to be aired at the same time the not-so-independent National Assembly is debating a new communications law that would create a Communications Council — controlled by the executive branch — with the power to impose severe sanctions on radio and TV stations and newspapers.
For starters, the proposed law contains this contradictory statement in its preamble:
Every person . . . has the right to . . . search, receive, exchange and distribute information that is truthful, appropriate, contextualized, plural and without previous censorship. . .
Of course, it will be up to the council to decide what is truthful (and appropriate, contextualized and plural, whatever that means).
Honduras’ Interim Government Falls Into Zelaya’s Trap
Once again, and as a response to the return of deposed president Manuel Zelaya to Tegucigalpa, the interim government of Honduras has overreacted by decreeing a 45-day suspension of constitutional guarantees such as the freedom to move around the country and the right to assemble. The government is even imposing some restrictions on freedom of the press. More disturbingly, today the army shut down a radio station and a TV station supportive of Zelaya.
As I’ve written before, these measures are unnecessary, counterproductive and unjustified. While Zelaya’s supporters are known for repeatedly relying on violence, their actions have been so far contained by the police and the army. Zelaya himself is secluded at the Brazilian Embassy, and while he is using it as a command center to make constant calls for insurrection, the authorities have so far been in control of the situation.
One of the most troubling aspects of the suspension of constitutional guarantees is that they effectively obstruct the development of a clean, free, and transparent election process. Let’s remember that Honduras is holding a presidential election on November 29th, and many regard this electoral process as the best way to solve the country’s political impasse, particularly at an international level.
There can’t be a free and transparent presidential election while basic constitutional rights have been suspended. By adopting these self-defeating measures, the interim government of Honduras is lending a hand to Zelaya and his international allies in their effort to disrupt the country’s election process.
Venezuela’s Assault on Freedom of the Press and Other Liberties
A Venezuelan court has prohibited Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision Television, from traveling to Washington, D.C. where he was scheduled to deliver an address tomorrow at the Cato Institute. Zuloaga and his network have been openly critical of the Hugo Chavez government, and as a result have endured harassment from authorities as Chavez attempts to place television and radio networks under government control or shutter them completely.
As a result, the Cato forum will now feature the vice-president of Globovision TV, Carlos Alberto Zuloaga, and Rafael Alfonzo, president of CEDICE, Venezuela’s leading market-liberal think tank, with comment by Robert Rivard, of the Inter American Press Association. Mr. Alfonzo will discuss how CEDICE and other members of civil society are coming under increasingly serious government harassment for expressing views critical of the government.
Ecuador’s Continuing Attack on the Free Press
Last year the Ecuadorian government seized two TV channels broadcasting on public airwaves and one cable channel along with hundreds of other businesses supposedly owned by the Isaías family, an unpopular Ecuadorian business group that the government bailed out in the late nineties. In seizing those assets, the current government claimed to be cashing in on a long overdue debt owed to it by the Isaías family. Leaving the violations of due process aside, this was a significant attack on freedom of the press in Ecuador given that the two public access channels garnered almost half the country’s TV audience. Back then the government said it was going to sell off the seized channels but it has not done so yet.
The last elections in my country, held on April 26, showed how government ends up manipulating state media: 79% of the political ads aired on these channels went for the official candidates despite the fact that the new electoral rules require every candidate to have equal air time.
Since those elections, Carlos Vera, the most popular morning news anchor in the country, quit his channel Ecuavisa because he claims to have been subject to the self-censorship imposed by Ecuavisa’s owner. According to Vera, the owner wanted to dictate whom he should interview on his show and chose not to air one of his interviews which, coincidentally, was with the President’s main political opponent. Vera issued a public statement explaining that he would not censor his show nor would he let anybody else do so. Since then, Ecuavisa’s independence has been severely questioned.
This leaves us with one important public airwaves channel that is still independent: Teleamazonas.
For the past couple of weeks there have been growing rumors that the government might shut down Teleamazonas applying the laws of Conartel, the regulator of TV and radio stations. According to Ecuadorian regulations, which have their origins in the military dictatorship of General Rodríguez Lara of the early 1970s, a TV channel or radio station can be sanctioned symbolically for $20 the first time it commits a violation; suspended for up to 90 days the second time; and lose its concession to operate for good the third time. Conartel has already imposed two sanctions on Teleamazonas.
In the first case Teleamazonas was sanctioned for showing bull fighting images, which Conartel has considered to be “conducive to violence” and thus, in violation of its regulations. This is a questionable rule, especially in a country in which bull-fighting takes center stage every December in Quito. In the case of the second sanction Conartel is applying a clause that forbids the live reporting of unconfirmed events. Such a law would make illegal most of the news reported in CNN or other news networks that report in real time. In this particular case, Teleamazonas aired images of what appeared to be a clandestine vote-counting center.
For now, we are waiting to hear from Conartel about the third sanction and what it is going to do about the second sanction, which would, if enforced, mean the suspension of Teleamazonas for up to 90 days. I wonder what freedom of expression Ecuadorians would be left with if the government decided to apply Conartel’s rules consistently to every TV and radio station.
Meanwhile the former Minister of the Interior, Gustavo Larrea, called attention to “journalists whose salary comes from foreign powers” including the CIA, though he did not specify what individuals he was referring to.
When asked about details he merely replied that it was the duty of a legislative commission to find out. I guess he is suggesting that individuals like myself, who write for an Ecuadorian newspaper but are not employed by an Ecuadorian company, should be investigated…
What is happening in Ecuador, and what has been happening in Venezuela over the last few years — the shutdown of RCTV, and the ongoing persecution of Globovisión — shows that in countries with a weak rule of law and public ownership of the airwaves, regulations can easily serve those in power who want to silence independent voices. Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase warned Americans about this potential abuse of power in 1959 in his classic “The Federal Communications Commission.” Back then he wondered, “In other fields it is almost always agreed that the use of property rights and of the price system serves the public good, why not in the case of radios [and TV]?”
Cato on Facebook
Cato on Twitter
Cato on Google+
Cato on YouTube
