Journalists Carlos Dada, from El Salvador, María Teresa Ronderos, from Colombia, Carmen Aristegui, from Mexico, and Carlos Fernando Chamorro, from Nicaragua, warned that independent journalism faces, especially in Central America, a situation of “survival” and “resistance permanent ”, given the emergence of regimes and the consolidation of totalitarian dictatorships, which see freedom of the press as an obstacle.
“Central American journalism right now is in a situation of survival, entrenched in order to continue doing its job in the face of the attacks coming from all sides,” says journalist Carlos Dada, director of El Faro.
Professionals agree that “good journalism is always an obstacle to power”, since it demands accountability, reveals human rights violations, demands that responsibilities be assumed and tells how the exercise of power develops. In this context, they warn that the union faces “permanent resistance” since it is strongly persecuted, even worse when the rule of law has been lost in a country.
Communicators participated in the webinar “Authoritarianism, democracy and journalism in Latin America”, made by CONFIDENTIAL regarding its 25th anniversary, in which they also took the opportunity to express our director, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and our editor of Nicas Migrants, Cindy Regidor, who was in charge of moderating the virtual event, a recognition of these years of “resistance” and “hard work”, together with the team of CONFIDENTIAL, This week, Tonight and Niu, despite the persecution, confiscation and criminalization directed by the Ortega-Murillo regime.
Chamorro stressed that by conforming CONFIDENTIALIn 1996, it did not have the objective of doing “resistance journalism”, but the Ortega-Murillo regime -in the last 14 years- “forced us to resort to this permanent effort, which is to do journalism under persecution, permanently defending ourselves.”
“Doing journalism in Nicaragua is extremely critical”
In Nicaragua, says Chamorro, doing journalism is “extremely critical, not only because of the persecution of journalists ”, but also because of the closure of sources of information, which has worsened in recent months, after the imprisonment of presidential candidates, former ambassadors, territorial leaders and peasants, businessmen, rights defenders humans, journalists, activists and politicians.
It highlights that in these 14 years, in which independent journalism has suffered in Nicaragua from the lack of access to public information, it has been essential to “cultivate the trust of people who work in the Government, who are subject to censorship, but who they are very important sources of information ”.
He rescued that this cultivation of sources has allowed the disclosure of information that the Ortega-Murillo regime has tried to hide, exemplifying with the case of the coverage that has been carried out in CONFIDENTIAL on the covid-19 pandemic, in which it has been revealed that the regime has hidden thousands of deaths related to the coronavirus, despite what it officially reports.
The journalist insisted on the importance that the population and journalists, “do not accept self-censorship”, so that stories continue to be told, recording the human rights violations that are committed, the acts of corruption and all the actions that go against of a democratic state and of law.
Challenges of Latin American journalism
The journalist María Teresa Ronderos, director of the Ibero-American Center for Journalistic Investigation (Clip), also warned about the difficulties that journalism faces to survive in dictatorships such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and in regimes that are taking shape, as in the case of El Salvador. However, he rescued that part of the challenges of independent journalism, precisely in hostile contexts for the exercise, is “collaboration … which is what first allows people not to feel alone and not self-censor.”
He mentioned that the benefits of collaborative work between independent media are focused on ensuring that information is not lost, even when reprisals come from power groups or the regime itself, and that when persecution and criminalization actions occur there are also solidarity networks immediate.
Carmen Aristegui, director of Aristegui Noticias, also highlighted the importance of “developing this muscle of collaboration more strongly”, although she stressed that this must be in “favor of the audiences, in favor of those who want to exercise and have all the right to exercise that right to information, they want to know ”.
He affirms that the challenge for journalists is to reinvent themselves “precisely to continue carrying out rigorous, verified, intelligent investigations that allow them to knock on the door of audiences.”
In addition, Aristegui indicates that the role of journalists is important not only for the fact of verifying data and facts, but because there is someone who takes charge of what is said, what is published, which, he points out, “It does not occur in the so-called social dialogue and cyberspace.”
“We are at a time when we have to assert what it is to be a journalist and take charge of what one says, what one reports,” he stressed.
Dada said that other situations faced by independent media are that they compete in unequal conditions with the propaganda machines of authoritarian regimes, “dedicated to spreading lies.” Although, he stressed that as professional journalists “we cannot compete on that same field, because the moment we enter that game we lose our reason for being, our nature, our ability to be useful to our audiences with our journalism.”
In this sense, he affirmed that it is important to try to educate readers, users or audiences, so that they can also learn to detect which sources give them the closest thing to the truth, which pieces are verified, then, he warned, the information – wherever they come from- when they are uploaded to new platforms or social networks, “exactly the same spaces compete with all those trolls and, basically, we leave the audiences or the readers or the users of social networks before a question of faith ”.
Independent journalism urges support and “social agreement”
Communicators agree that independent journalism also faces problems of economic sustainability, in the absence of advertising guidelines, support from non-profit organizations, and the purchase of their products through subscriptions or memberships.
Dada affirms that in an openly undemocratic context, where journalists have no possible defense and are seen as enemies for controlling power, it also has the disadvantage that their financing “is closing, because it is already difficult for someone to want to advertise in your newspaper when the regime declared you its enemy ”.
The journalist indicates that, above all this closure of access to funds, restrictions on freedoms and constitutional rights, what is effectively left for journalism is “a society that agrees with us.”
Ronderos advised, in this context of economic sustainability difficulties in hostile situations for press freedom, that the media opt for “a mix of things”, among which he mentioned: non-traditional subscriptions, memberships that connect audiences as part of the media they support, the creation of additional businesses that can sustain the media and events in which journalists can participate, disseminating and explaining the investigations that the media carries out to a certain number of audiences at a cost.
The expert highlights that a fundamental part of the mix, in addition to the options outlined above, is the philanthropic support of people with clean capital who believe in the freedom of the independent press and give money so that it continues to be exercised.
“All things combined help, but I think that the philanthropic support for such critical moments that we are living in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Honduras, Cuba, Venezuela, would help the media to sustain themselves,” he said.
