(Inescapable family reasons prevent the ombudsman’s usual column from not being published today. However, this text published in September 2018 makes up for it with astonishing relevance).
In a frigid climate in the air and boiling in society, with a notorious excess of apocalyptic forecasts on the networks and in a handful of unreliable media, but with a high power of virulence, there is no doubt that the country is going through a crisis of which We already know antecedents and that on previous occasions it caused pain, sadness, violence and loss of life. This column intends, today, to get closer to the readers of PROFILE to accompany them in the administration of an anguish that has different seasonings from previous cases, at least from the framework of journalism.
What has been observed in recent days allows us to differentiate the positions of the majority of the media regarding crises of the past and states that jeopardized – by action, omission or complicity – democratic stability. Although unquestionably serious, the volatility of the exchange market and its direct consequences on daily life this time did not give way to catastrophic headlines, inflammatory texts or suspicions of collusion with positions close to destabilization (…).
Let’s look at some similar moments from the past decades:
*The constant mention, without critical analysis or rejection, of the pressures and military proposals during the government of Arturo Frondizi (1958/1962) solidified to a large extent the position of the sectors prone to the coup. Frondizi fell (…).
*The campaign against the image and the government of Arturo Illia (1963/1966), also legitimized by the polls, but with justicialism still proscribed, was of astonishing intensity: the pharmaceutical industry (opposed to the drug law), the powerful international oil lobby (affected by the cancellation of contracts), some sectors of Peronism, Juan Domingo Perón himself (who told the journalist Tomás Eloy Martínez in Madrid: “I sympathize with the military government because it put an end to a catastrophic situation”) , fueled in the media (particularly influential political magazines) the growing generation of the coup climate. Illia was overthrown (…).
*The mainstream media were the main drivers in creating the climate prior to the coup of March 1976. Isabel Perón governed after the death of her husband in 1974, and the state of violence caused death and threats, disappearances, torture, bombs. The economy was in decline and journalism (the big media, including) was adding fuel to a fire that seemed uncontrollable. Isabel fell, the fiercest dictatorship in Argentine history came, and a good part of journalism actively accompanied her (…).
*At the end of the 1980s, Raúl Alfonsín (1983/1989) suffered the onslaught of blows and mini-blows from a market that he could not dominate. The media reflected the deterioration of an economy in permanent crisis and – with few exceptions – seemed to justify a premature departure from the government. This happened: the radical leader had to hand over power ahead of time, anticipate the elections and pave the way for the return of Peronism to the Casa Rosada, led by a Carlos Menem highly praised by much of the journalism (…).
*Fernando de la Rúa became president as part of an alliance that aroused favorable expectations and deteriorated with increasing intensity, until it reached the debacle at the end of 2001. The mainstream press contributed to a great extent to the abrupt end of his term, with many lives that were lost in those days (…).
Today, the landscape is different. There is more restraint, although criticism of a policy that shows deterioration in all lines, economic and political, is not spared.
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