The Argentine political power was the main responsible for aggressions against journalists during 2024, representing 52.5% of the 179 attacks detected throughout the country. This data arises from the annual report of the Freedom monitoring of the Argentine journalism forum (Fopea)entitled “The siege to Journalism weakens democracy”, Presented within the framework of World Press Freedom Day.
The report reveals an alarming increase of almost 53% in cases registered with respect to 2023 and 103% compared to 2022. It follows that the president Javier Milei He starred in 56 of the episodes denounced, mostly through stigmatizing speech, grievances or insults.
According to the analysis, institutional violence is accentuated by adding the attacks perpetrated by security forces and members of judicial powers (14.5% of the total). Fernando Stanich, of the monitoring commission, he also said that the Violence of state or parastatal (including YouTubers and Trolls) was present in 80% of the 179 cases surveyed in 2024. This proportion represents a strong increase, since in 2023 this type of violence was recorded in half of the cases of that year. Stanich also stressed that 44% of the aggressors used digital violence, enhancing their effect. 2024 is positioned as the second year with more cases since the beginning of monitoring in 2008.
During the presentation at the University of Palermo, the president of Fopea, Paula Moreno Románhe reflected: “2024 was a year in which journalism was the Punching Ball of the president and his environment in a strategic and organized work that only aims to raise extreme looks and delegitimize. Polarizing discourse needs to locate journalism as an enemy and in that sense we are concerned about this game of tolerating intolerance.” Along these lines, the head of the forum stressed that “journalism has the responsibility of not enviving the fire but neither of being consumed for it.”
The event included a conversation with the lawyer Ricardo Gil Lavedra, President of the Public College of the Advocacy of CABA, and the journalist Jorge Fernández Díaz, moderated by the vice president of Fopea, Claudio Jacquelin. “We live a frontal attack against freedom of expression. They are looking to delegitimize journalists,” said the lawyer and He questioned the argument that the president exercises his freedom of expression: “vexation, humiliation and insult are not guarded tend to inhibit expression. It is a way of indirect censorship.” For his part, the journalist said that “Mileism is in love with the Kirchner Praxis” in his link with the press and criticized the “collusion of many colleagues who did not do the early alerts” and “congratulate themselves with this government.”
In a study on the amplifier role of the social networks of the Methodo for Fopea consultant, based on more than 2.4 million interactions, he concluded that The aggressions of power multiply virtual violence against the press. The pejorative mentions of journalism by the head of the Executive Power and related accounts added 240,000 in 2024, 2000% more than in 2023. It was stated that each verbal attack of the president generates a multiplier effect on the networks, installing a hostile climate.
The study of the consultant generated a cloud of words from the terms and adjectives used by Milei and other users against the press. This cloud visually represents the frequency of use: the most repeated words appear in greater size. Among the most prominent terms are “ensobrados”, “pauteros”, “fools”, “violent”, “donkey” and the phrase “journalism in flames”. Less frequently, others are observed as “slender”, “corrupt” and “soretes”.
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