The former President of the Republic, Julio María Sanguinetti, referred in his opinion column of “El Correo de los Fridays”, to the position that Uruguay occupies in the UNESCO ranking, in terms of Freedom of the Press worldwide.
“We already know that all rankings, whatever they are, are complicated. And loaded with subjectivity when it comes to non-quantifiable elements. But our country witnessed a show of manipulation rarely seen. When UNESCO held its annual conference in Uruguay, on World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, the organization “Reporters without Borders” announced that Uruguay had fallen from position 18 to 44 in the ranking of press freedom. 26 places… nothing more, nothing less. Of course, UNESCO had chosen Uruguay for the exemplary nature of its democracy and its unquestionable climate of freedom, widely recognized throughout the world. In this context, this bomb is set off. Countries where journalists have been killed, such as Burkina Faso, appear better than Uruguay,” Sanguinetti wrote this Friday the 13th.
The former president added that the official explanation was given by the regional director of the organization, pointing out that there was a change in methodology and that this led to that situation. “Before seven indicators were considered, now there are five and they, from what can be seen, are handled with an alarming generality. For example, that Argentina looks better than Uruguay in the evaluation of the economic context, is at least extravagant. The same spokesman for the organization says that although Uruguay is one of the three or four best in Latin America, he does not mean that there are no degradations in the journalistic exercise, ”said the general secretary of the CEN.
For Sanguinetti, “what has really changed is the sign of the government and that is the origin of this gross manipulation.” He argued that this manipulation “was started by the official of the Canelones front office, Edison Lanza, in Deutsche Welle, with a note corroborating the presenter’s incredible introduction: “Until very recently, Uruguay was included in the international freedom of expression reports. press and opinion as one of the exceptions in America, and yet the processing of a new media law by the government of Luis Lacalle Pou and his conservative caucus has set off the alarm of journalists and defenders of press freedom…» . They launch themselves against that project that, precisely, what it intended was to repeal the norms that the previous law established, by introducing itself into television content.
“As you can see, since the sign of the government changed, there has been an attempt to discredit the country in a matter in which it shines. The manipulation has an unequivocal origin. They are the same characters. One or two, no more, but with the front apparatus soon to amplify. Happily, the facts are the facts: in terms of freedom of the press in the world there will be the same, but better than Uruguay we do not know. No matter how many rankings they make”, he concluded.
