Ghostwriters in the Peruvian press
By Lynda Tharratt Posted Mon, Jan 1 2001
Journalists at the daily newspaper El Gran Sur called them the “night goblins.” When the newspaper staff packed up and went home for the night, strange happenings occurred before the latest edition went to press in the morning. New headlines appeared and stories were changed. Rumors abounded, but only recently have journalists been able to speak without fear about the things that occurred in the media during Alberto Fujimori’s presidency.
It is now known that the National Intelligence Service frequently wrote fabricated headlines and articles, which newspapers were obligated to print. Opposition candidates were disparaged. Late last year with the dissolution of the National Intelligence Service, the director of the pro-government tabloid El Chino admitted that the intelligence service had supplied the paper with highly misleading headlines for short, scarcely related articles inside the paper.
One of the most publicized cases of press manipulation was that of Israeli-born Baruch Ivcher, who was stripped of his Peruvian citizenship after the television station Frecuencia Latina, of which Ivcher was a major shareholder, criticized Fujimori’s government.
Videos left behind by the fugitive ex-presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos are shedding more light on the manipulation of the press by judicial authorities and the National Intelligence Service. More than 700 videos were taped in Montesinos’ office in the National Intelligence Service building. On Jan. 9, the contents of the first briefcase full of videos were revealed to the public. One video shows Eduardo Calmell del Solar, editor of the Lima daily newspaper Expreso, receiving US$2 million from Montesinos during a meeting at which the president of the board of directors of Cable Noticias (Cable News), Vicente Silva Checa, was also present. A warrant was subsequently issued for Calmell del Solar’s and Checa’s arrest, and they are now considered fugitives from justice.
Ernesto Schutz, the president of the board of directors of Panamericana Televisión, Manuel Delgado Parker, principal shareholder of Peruvian Radio Programs, and Domingo Palermo, one of the owners of Channel A, appear in another video receiving payments form Montesinos. Julio Vera Abad, president of the board of directors for the TV channel Red Global, reportedly appears in another video that has not yet been released.
El Comercio, generally seen as the country’s most trustworthy news source, lauded the public exposure of the videos as a healing of the country’s ethics. But other political commentators have expressed concern that a witch hunt could result, especially since the offices of the National Intelligence Service helped people who had unrelated, legitimate concerns. Some question the random selection of the videos.
Gilberto Miranda, the director and editor in chief of El Peruano, a pro-government paper, says that the media have been manipulated by “a well-installed machine to create false reports based on unreal events,” and that “the judicial authorities are still working to discredit the current government.”
How deep is the corruption in Peru’s media? Some journalists are still unwilling to speak about the subject for fear of the autonomous judicial authorities. Many journalists are working for newspapers and TV stations whose owners and directors are currently in jail or have fled the country because the videos showed them being paid off by the former government. Outside of the capital, local media were also heavily controlled by the government.
Alberto Portugal, owner of Radio Altamar in Ilo, a medium- sized city in the south, says, “They tried to asphyxiate the small radio stations to work with the big ones,” which were controlled by the government.
He went on to explain that this was done through heavy licensing fees and taxes, which meant that many communications companies were building up extensive debt with the tax authorities. The former government gave once-indebted newspapers, as well as TV and radio stations, the chance to pay off their debts by running government ads. Portugal also alleged that members of the National Intelligence Service posed as reporters and accountants in many communications companies.
Mario Rospigliosi, journalist and owner of the radio station Radio El Puerto, is still uncertain about the role of government in Peru’s media. He has taken down the sign outside the station and has been forced to work in a clandestine manner due to constant harassment by local government officials who, in Rospigliosi’s opinion, form part of a conspiracy to maintain government control over the media. He claims that terror politics in the country stand in the way of free journalism.
On Jan. 28, a reporter for América TV, Nicolás Lúcar, interviewed a supposed ex-bodyguard of Vladimiro Montesinos. The ex-bodyguard claimed that the current president, Valentín Paniagua, had received US$30,000 from Montesinos’ front man, Víctor Alberto Venero Garrido, when President Paniagua was running for Congress. Lúcar also claimed that Venero is related to the president. Paniagua fully denied the charges and reacted angrily, saying that it was “an open and outright conspiracy.” He affirmed that tactics of this type were used to discredit the opposition during Fujimori’s regime. Reporters of other channels were quick to dismiss the allegations, saying they only proved that América TV continued to be under the control of judicial authorities.
Ricardo Palma Michelson, journalist and owner of Radio Miraflores in Lima, said at a recent conference that the fear had now ended for journalists in Peru. His firm’s accountant, a National Intelligence Service agent, had Palma jailed during Fujimori’s presidency for tax problems. Palma had been jailed after running reports criticizing Fujimori’s government.
Have Peru’s media goblins faded off into a not-so-storybook past? Frecuencia Latina TV recently released the following statement on its Web site: “Now that we look back, Peruvians are saying that never again will we return to tyranny, abuse, death, wrongful justice or the violation of civic rights.” Baruch Ivcher recently returned to his adopted country and the media. Furthermore the cases of five journalists serving prison sentences of 12 to 20 years are now under review by the Ministry of Justice’s Human Rights Council. As a result, the International Press Institute voted to remove Peru from its Watch List at its recent meeting in New Delhi. The goblins have disappeared for now. But with goblins, you never know.