Buenos Aires, Argentina – Last Friday, March 1, Argentine President Javier Milei announced the closure of the state news agency Télam. He accused her of being an agent of “Kirchnerist propaganda.” Since then, the more than 700 workers of the company have mobilized to defend it and prevent its closure. The controversial measure opened a debate regarding press freedom and widened a rift that the Government seems to have no intention of narrowing. We analyze the importance of the agency for national journalism, the reasons that led the Executive to make this decision and the future of public media.
“Say hello to Télam who is leaving…” the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), minutes after Javier Milei will announce the closure of the state news agency Télam, on March 1in his opening speech to the ordinary sessions of the National Congress.
“We are 700 people, 700 workers, 700 families that you laugh at. If I were you, I would feel sorry, but well, making fun of the Government seems to be the modus operandi,” replied Carlos Aletto, a journalist from Télam who had just found out on television that he was losing his job.
“If they work, they will continue to do so. And no, we do not make fun of those who work or those who honestly wish to do so,” replied Adorni, who, like several members of the Government, usually uses social networks in a provocative way.
Say hello to TELAM who is leaving…
— Manuel Adorni (@madorni) March 2, 2024
The discussion continued, while thousands of users positioned themselves for and against this intersection, one of the many in which it seems that they seek legitimization of government measures on social networks.
“I saw the mockery and felt very indignant. You are beginning to prepare a duel and for them to laugh is terrible,” Aletto told France 24.
“And not only that, but they send you the entire army of trolls. You have 3,000 very young kids attacking you, calling you stupid, 'gnocchi' (a derogatory term for public employees) and a criminal. It is very ugly, because not only do they fire you, they also stigmatize you,” adds the head of the Culture section in Télam.
The announcement of the closure of the news agency once again widened a crack that the Government seems not interested in narrowing. On the contrary: with different measures at all levels It is about separating from everything that may be associated with Kirchnerism.
In fact, the reason Milei gave in his speech in Congress is that Télam was used in recent decades as a “Kirchnerist propaganda agency.”
Faced with each closure that he announced since his arrival in the Government, Milei framed it mainly in his plan to cut public spending and shrink the State. In this case, the reason he emphasized was Télam's association with Kirchnerism.
“It's a chase”
The agency denounces “persecution.” For Aletto, it is “an attack on freedom of expression.”
“Today Milei is in the Government. He is the one who can lower the Télam line, since it is a state agency. That is, what he must hate is that there are Kirchnerists. “It is a persecution of Kirchnerism, Peronism or militants who do not think like him,” he maintains.
There is no Kirchnerist bias in the news
“In Culture we never did militancy. We are professionals, beyond the political thoughts that each one may have. The notes are professional and transversal to the ideologies of the writers and publishers. There is no Kirchnerist bias within the news. He is a ghost that these people (the Government) have,” adds the writer.
Sabino Cabrera, a photographic archive worker and Télam delegate, agrees that the decision violates press freedom.
“They immediately closed the Télam agency portal, which was public and free for information, and also the cable company, which is where the journalistic dispatches that the different media use as input come from. It is limiting the State from having a role to guarantee access to information and depending only on private media.who have more back to generate content”, he tells France 24.
The Government defends itself against the accusations and rejects that the measure is an attack on freedom of expression.
“It has nothing to do with information pluralism or issues related to press freedom. This is fulfilling what the president promised during the campaign,” Adorni said at a press conference last Monday, March 4.
For her part, Foreign Minister Diana Mondino questioned the efficiency of the agency and cited the decision for economic reasons.
“Why, as poor kids, do we have to pay for a task that can be done from a private point of view? Télam sold services, it can continue selling services without the need for the State to make contributions,” said the Foreign Minister on Saturday, March 9, in the program “La noche de Mirtha Legrand”, on El Trece.
After the announcement of the closure, when entering the website, users find a sign that says “Page under reconstruction.” For now there is no way to access any published content. That is to say, all the articles written by the journalists disappeared..
Cabrera denounces “censorship” and laments the work of his colleagues, which no longer exists.
“In addition to work, I think about personal things. It is your effort put there, your dedication, your feeling. And it's not there anymore. “It is very violent,” he says.
Milei relies on its main ally: public opinion
Milei's argument to close Télam has, among others, a clear purpose. He is aware that a large part of Argentina voted against Kirchnerism in the 2023 presidential elections and that the political space is burdened with accusations of corruption.
With the decision on the news agency, he intends to have public opinion on his side. He did the same with the closure of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) and the prohibition of inclusive language in the Public Administration. It seems to give more importance to the past of these entities and policies than to their functionality.
With the Télam case, the lack of knowledge about news agencies is evident. Common people do not know that it is the main source of the media, which, logically, will be affected by the closure.
On social networks, they flooded the publications of libertarian sympathizers with Télam statistics and the differences in the number of visits with 'Clarín', 'La Nación' and 'Infobae', the main news portals in Argentina.
They are unaware that these companies themselves are subscribers to the agency and that, without knowing it, they read the cables they send in the media they consume every day.
There is no place where such pure journalism is done, with the raw material of a news story, as in an agency.
Aletto tells France 24 that he must explain the operation of the agency every day.
“On the street they tell me 'I don't read Télam'. 'Don't you read Clarín?', I ask them. 'Clarín yes', they respond. 'Well, he's reading Télam,' I explain.”
But it is not only Télam journalists who highlight the importance of the agency. Other media outlets regret that they will be left without a reliable source of information that, ultimately, makes their work easier.
“You can't even imagine how important Télam is and what news agencies are in society. They don't have to know, since the agencies feed the media. There is no place where such pure journalism is done, with the raw material of a news story, as in an agency,” the 'TN' and 'El Trece' journalist Sebastián Domenech wrote in X.
The future of public media
Since he has been known publicly, Milei has always expressed his rejection of State intervention in the economy. Within his anarcho-capitalist philosophy he claims that nothing belongs to the State.
The Télam case put the rest of the public media on alert, which the president has already announced that he wants to privatize. In this regard, the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) warns about this situation and calls for respect for freedom of expression.
“The Argentine Journalism Forum rconfirms the position in favor of the existence of non-governmental public media, which aim to respect freedom of expression and the right to information of the citizen. We are aware that the state media have been used in the country, on many occasions, as means of political propaganda for a faction, leaving aside the pluralism that they should guarantee. Its original function is to serve all citizens, foster open, diverse and respectful communication to strengthen democracy. In a context of growing misinformation, public media can and should play a decisive role in building more critical and better-educated audiences.with inclusion and balance of voices,” FOPEA said in a statement.
In dialogue with France 24, the president of FOPEA, Paula Moreno, raised the need for “public media to be sustained as public.”
“That does not mean that Télam's performance so far should not be reviewed. We speak out on the need for the media to have a public, non-governmental profile. There are models in the world that are very interesting, with media that have parliamentary control and schemes that generate another level of independence from the governments in power. It seems to us that there is a lot to review in the public media, but this way of the Government is not the way,” he explains.
According to Moreno, the fact that there are fewer voices “has a direct impact on freedom of expression.” In any case, he clarifies that, for the moment, the closure “is more discursive than real.”
“For me, the way, and we have said this from FOPEA, is to value what is useful, audit, be clear about what the reality is. Because now they are going to make little pieces of the history of Télam. That there were so many people hired that did not correspond, companies that worked… But there were also people who worked very well,” he concludes.
The Government extended the leave of employees and opened voluntary retirement
Through a statement, Télam's controller, Diego Chaher, informed the agency's staff of the “extension of the work waiver.”
“All Télam SE staff are informed that the waiver of paid labor debit benefits is extended for seven (7) days from midnight on March 11, 2024,” states the text sent to employees.
In a second statement, the controller notified about the possibility of voluntary retirement.
“In the framework of a State restructuring process initiated by the President of the Nation, the implementation of the Voluntary Retirement program is announced, for thirty (30) days, for all personnel, permanent and contracted for a fixed term, of Télam SE, in the terms of the file attached at the bottom of this communication,” says the message that bears Chaher's signature.
Télam workers and their loved ones mobilized on Sunday, March 10, from one of the agency's offices to Plaza de Mayo to protest against the closure.
With the attendees themselves forming the words, they took a collective photo that summarizes the demand that was born ten days ago: “No to the closure of Télam.”
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