Reporters Without Borders warns against media ownership concentration in Argentina under Macri.
The international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) questioned Argentine President Mauricio Macri's decrees abrogating Argentina’s 2009 Audiovisual Media Law, warning that the new legislation that creates the Enacom agency “favors concentration of media ownership in the country.”
In its annual Press Freedom Index report, the Paris-based international group ranked Argentina 54th, improving its position from 57th. The report stressed, however, that the rescission of the Audiovisual Communications Services Act – passed by Congress during the Cristina Fernández de Kirhcner administration in 2009 - might "result in a higher concentration of media ownership."
“Argentina’s warring media have long been polarized between those owned by the state and those owned by the private sector. The 2009 media law, which encouraged pluralism and provided for a better distribution of frequencies between state, privately-owned and community media, was immediately modified when Mauricio Macri became president in 2015,” the report says.
“The new legislation will probably result in a greater concentration of media ownership, especially in the hands of the Clarín media group, which had to surrender some of its broadcast frequencies after a long legal battle during Cristina Kirchner’s second term as president.”
The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by RSF based upon the organization's assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year.
The 2016 Press Freedom Index has Finland at the top; 15 of the 20 countries with the most press freedoms were in Europe. In the Americas the highest ranked are Costa Rica (6th), Jamaica (10th), Canada (18th), Uruguay (20th), and Chile (31st); the United States ranked 41st. The worst ranked in the Americas were Colombia (134th), Honduras (137th), Venezuela (139th), Mexico (149th), and Cuba (171st); worldwide, the country with the least free press was, according to the report, Eritrea.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212952/rsf-warns-against-concentration-of-media-ownership-under-new-legal-framework
