Press/Politics

Waisbord / Antipress
7(3) Summer
Violence
2002 and the Crisis of the State

Antipress Violence and

the Crisis of the State

Silvio Waisbord

Although it is an issue of immediate interest to reporters and press organizations,

antipress violence has not elicited a great deal of scholarly attention.While in the con-
text of developed democracies,studies have concluded that violence against the press
has significantly diminished in the twentieth century,the situation is markedly different
elsewhere. This gap is not surprising considering that the literature on press and
democracy has been largely produced in the West and has largely reflected the
absence of antipress violence in Western nations. The persistence of attacks against
journalists outside the West, however, makes it necessary to put it at the center to
analyze the situation of journalistic labor and the prospects for the press in historically
weak democracies. This article analyzes antipress violence by focusing on the Latin
American case.The argument is that in postauthoritarian situations,the breakdown of
the state accounts for why the press, particularly investigative reporters and publica-
tions, is the target of violence. Antipress violence reflects the impossibility of the
state’s fulfilling its mission to monopolize the legitimate use of violence and the lack of
accountability of those responsible for the attacks. Because it is a central arena in the
battle for public expression, the press becomes a prominent target when naked vio-
lence replaces the rule of law. The fate of the press is intrinsically linked to the fate of
the democratic state. There cannot be a democratic press as long as the state does
not secure minimal institutional conditions that democracy demands.

The collapse of authoritarian regimes in the 1980s and 1990s opened new
opportunities for the emergence of a democratic press worldwide. The pros-
pects for a journalism that monitors power abuses and provides spaces for criti-
cism and citizenship improved as liberal democracies gradually replaced com-
munist and military governments in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
Civilian administrations eliminated systematic official censorship and made pro-
nouncements in favor of press freedom. A decade later, several developments
have raised questions about the limitations that journalism faces around the
world.
Press/Politics 7(3):90-109
© 2002 by the President and the Fellows of Harvard College

90

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 91

One area of concern has been the legal framework that regulates the function-
ing of the press in new democracies. Existing laws grant officials powerful mech-
anisms to manipulate the press. Unlike dictatorships, civilian governments only
sporadically resort to coercive means; instead, they have often used legislation to
chill critical coverage. Gag laws and the lack of an independent judiciary discour-
age a more audacious journalism. The fact that several governments proposed
(and passed, in some cases) legislation to dissuade press criticism, coupled with
official reluctance to eliminate gag laws, became a recurrent point of tension.
Critics have often lambasted such policies on the grounds that a democratic and
responsible press cannot legitimately function when, for example, insult and
contempt laws provide mechanisms for authorities to suppress any signs of dis-
sent. Moreover, the existence of laws that, in principle, favor hard-hitting
reporting is insufficient. Without judicial systems that, if not completely inde-
pendent, are, at least, minimally committed to respecting and enforcing basic
press liberties, press laws that favor critical reporting are dead letter.
A second area of concern has been press economics. Amid several economic
difficulties worldwide, two situations severely constrain the press. On one hand,
the economic weight of states on media economics reduces the autonomy of
news organizations. Because states are still crucial for keeping them afloat, gov-
ernments can meddle in newsrooms and editorial policies. Press companies,
particularly if interested in expanding business opportunities, need to assidu-
ously court governments to receive advertising, import permits, tax breaks,
loans, and other benefits. On the other hand, business concentration, a tendency
certainly not unique to new democracies, further restrains press autonomy.
Tight linkages between political and economic interests, represented in the
ascent of politicians/media moguls and media/political dynasties in many new
democracies, make the idea of press independence illusory. But while the elimi-
nation of gag laws and the strengthening of a judiciary committed to defending
bedrock principles of the Western press are mandatory to solve legal problems,
alternatives to the domination of business interests seem more difficult. Deci-
sions to separate political and business media interests inevitably affect funda-
mental power relations.
A third area of concern has been antipress violence, attacks through verbal
intimidation and physical harm inflicted on reporters and journalistic organiza-
tions. Violence is a reality for a large majority of journalists and news organiza-
tions outside of the wealthy West (Sussman 1991). Every year, scores of journal-
ists are attacked and assassinated. Twenty-four journalists were murdered in
2000 (Committee to Protect Journalists 2000). In Eastern Europe and Latin
America, the transition from authoritarianism to liberal democracy has not con-
tributed to the elimination of antipress violence. Amid persistent political crisis,
attacks also continue in sub-Saharan and Central African countries (Martz 1998;
Mostafa 1999). Despite official pronouncements and pressure put by

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92 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

international government and nongovernment organizations such as the Com-

mittee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Frontiers, perpetrators are
rarely found or prosecuted.
Although it is an issue of immediate interest to reporters and press organiza-
tions,antipress violence has not elicited a great deal of scholarly attention.While
in the context of developed democracies, studies have concluded that violence
against the press has significantly diminished in the twentieth century (Nerone
1989), the situation is markedly different elsewhere. The study of antipress vio-
lence is important to understand the prospects for a democratic press. Antipress
violence has perceptible effects on the press. It breeds fear and self-censorship
and discourages critical reporting (Chalaby 2000).Its causes do not seem as clear
as in the cases of legislative or economic conditions that dissuade the press from
covering sensitive topics. Gag laws keep the press at a short leash;
conglomerization limits the range of topics that can be critically reported. Nor
are solutions to antipress violence as obvious as in cases of legal and economic
limitations. Dismantling repressive legislation such as libel and “national secu-
rity” laws is an obvious solution to legal obstacles. Antitrust legislation may not
eliminate, but it can at least moderate, the influence of concentrated economic
interests. Finding a satisfactory resolution to antipress violence is much more
complicated, however. Raising attention to the problem is only a temporary
remedy; it provides some protection for journalists in peril, but it does not pro-
vide a solution to deep-seated conditions that breed violence against the press.
Although it is prevalent, antipress violence remains an understudied and
undertheorized problem. We lack answers to several questions: What condi-
tions foster antipress violence? Should it be understood as an expression of gen-
eral difficulties for the expression of ideas? Is it related to political violence at
large? What solutions can be instrumented? This gap is not surprising consider-
ing that the literature on press and democracy has been largely produced in the
West and has largely reflected the absence of antipress violence in Western
nations. With the exception of war reporters (mostly working in the Third
World) and the so-called “ethnic” press (newspapers and weeklies produced and
consumed by immigrant communities), the Western press has been virtually
exempt from attacks. The persistence of attacks against journalists outside the
West, however, makes it necessary to put it at the center to analyze the situation
of journalistic labor and the prospects for the press in historically weak
democracies.
This article analyzes antipress violence by focusing on the Latin American
case.1 The situation of the Latin American press offers a good case to understand
the causes of antipress violence and to illuminate problems that the press con-
fronts in emergent democracies. My argument is that the breakdown of the state
accounts for why the press, particularly investigative reporters and publications,
is the target of violence. Antipress violence reflects the impossibility of the

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 93

state’s fulfilling its mission to monopolize the legitimate use of violence and the
lack of accountability of those responsible for the attacks. In situations when the
state is on the verge of collapse,certainly it is not only the expression of ideas,but
any form of political participation, that is dangerous. Because it is a central arena
in the battle for public expression, the press becomes a prominent target when
naked violence replaces the rule of law. The fate of the press is intrinsically linked
to the fate of the democratic state. There cannot be a democratic press as long as
the state does not secure minimal institutional conditions that modern democ-
racy demands.

Patterns of Antipress Violence

According to information gathered by the Committee to Protect Journalists

(1997, 2000) and Reporters sans Frontières (Annual Reports; see http://
www.rsf.org/rsf/uk), between 1988 and 2000, 225 journalists have been killed
in Latin America, and hundreds of verbal and physical attacks have been
recorded. Impunity has been widespread. Only in a handful of cases have perpe-
trators been identified and prosecuted, but even in those cases, the intellectual
authors of the crimes were never found. Amid continuous violence, a number of
organizations have been recently founded to resolve the lack of information
about attacks. Together with international organizations, they investigate cases
of violence and urge authorities to bring perpetrators to court. In March 1998,
the Organization of American States created the office of the press rapporteur to
examine and report on the conditions for press freedom. In 1998, the Instituto
de Prensa y Sociedad, a Peruvian organization, set up a national emergency net-
work to facilitate the reporting of attacks in a fast and efficient manner, particu-
larly for reporters in the interior. The network has ten national correspondents
and a free telephone service to report news about attacks. Colombian journalists
have also established an organization that deals with different matters related to
press and violence (e.g., denouncing attacks, training journalists in covering
violence).
The question of violence does not seem unique to the press or, more broadly,
to the conditions for the expression of ideas. Neither the press nor the general
state of public debate can be sealed off from violent conditions. An extensive lit-
erature has shown that violence has been intrinsic, not exceptional, to the histor-
ical development of Latin America (Corradi et al. 1992; Huggins 1991; Pool
1994). The persistence of both “violence from above,” exemplified in military
repression and police brutality, and “violence from below,” represented by popu-
lar insurrections and armed struggles, have expressed a deep-seated “culture of
violence” in Latin America (Sosa Elizaga 1995; Wickham-Crowley 1995).
Taking this background into consideration, antipress violence is another mani-
festation of a widespread phenomenon that has plagued the region. As one

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94 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

observer suggests, “what is happening now to journalists is by no means new in

the region; it is only more perceptible and widely rejected” (Basombrio
1998:16). More than attesting to how the press or public discourse is controlled
and suppressed, antipress violence reflects the impossibility of any institution of
the public sphere to exist outside the spiral of violence. In a continent dominated
by violent politics,it would be surprising if the press were not a target of attacks.
Several patterns can be identified in antipress violence in Latin America.First,
as Table 1 shows, the number of attacks has not been similar across countries.
Although these numbers offer an accurate description of the situation in each
country, they only skim the surface. Used to continuous threats, many reporters
often choose not to denounce them and decide to do it only when they feel that
threats may turn into effective attacks. Also, reporters, particularly in small
towns, lack the means for easy and rapid access to inform organizations about
attacks and are more likely to accept threats as part of their jobs.
In the past decade, the situation in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru
was significantly worse than in any other countries in the region. The 1997
report of Reporters sans Frontières describes the situation in these four coun-
tries (and also in Cuba) as “difficult.” A death toll of 133 journalists between
1978 and 1997 has made Colombia one of the most dangerous countries for
journalists in the world. Caught in the cross fire of the government, drug traf-
fickers,paramilitary squads,and guerrillas,investigative reporters regularly face
extremely difficult conditions. While 18 journalists were killed during the hey-
day of the Medellín cartel–related violence in 1986, 6 reporters were murdered
in 1999. In the aftermath of a long civil war, the situation has not significantly
improved for Guatemalan journalists. In Mexico, 14 murders have been docu-
mented (including 3 in 1997), and inconclusive evidence exists linking dozens of
assassinations with the work of reporters (Orme 1996). In Peru, attacks intensi-
fied after the April 1992 self-coup led by President Alberto Fujimori. Eighteen
journalists were murdered between 1990 and 1996. Journalists who had rattled
many skeletons of the Fujimori administration and the armed forces have been
threatened, beaten, abducted, and killed.
In these countries, violence against the press does not seem to be isolated
from extended violence. Present for decades, political and social violence have
recently reached new heights. Violence has characterized Colombian politics for
much of its modern history. In the past two decades, the combination of guerrilla
insurrection, paramilitary groups, and drug barons was responsible for the mas-
sive escalation of violence. Guatemala is reeling from thirty-six years of civil war
and has recently initiated a process of pacification. In Mexico, drug-related vio-
lence, especially in northern states, and the rise of the Zapatista movement have
modified a political landscape that, until recently, was exempt from the kind of
violence typical of some Central American and South American countries. Nor
is violence foreign to Peruvian politics, but it worsened during the Fujimori

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 Table 1
Attacks against journalists in Latin America, 1988-2000
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Argentina 3 31 11 11 13 2 3 8 3 1
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Bolivia 2 4 1 7 4 1 6 2 1 2 2
Brazil 2 2 2 2 5 1 2 4 4 1 1
Chile 24 15 22 4 1 1
Colombia 8 6 8 10 7 4 2 10 11 3 6 24
Costa Rica 1 2
Dominican Republic 1 2 7 1
Ecuador 1 6 8 2
El Salvador 4 22 8 31 1 1 1
Guatemala 9 4 3 16 10 31 12 15 5
Honduras 2 1 1 4 2
Mexico 1 1 4 2 6 6 8 11 10 1 4 5
Nicaragua 4 2 3 9 2 2
Panama 31 33 6 5 6
Paraguay 8 9 2 6 5 1 16 2
Perua 11 10 9 27 51 17 22 19 6 16 11
Uruguay 1
Venezuela 3 2 26 24 45 2 4
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (1997, 2000); Reporters sans Frontières (Annual Reports; see http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk).
a. Peru’s immigration office issued a decree invalidating the Peruvian citizenship of the station’s owner, Baruch Ivcher. The government alleged that the Israel-
born Ivcher did not follow the proper administrative procedures when he was granted Peruvian citizenship in 1984.The law precludes foreigners from owning
media outlets. After several months of legal wrangling, the police entered Ivcher’s station to enforce a court order upholding the Immigration Office’s deci-
sion. Control of the station was turned to the pro-government minority owners. After this episode, Ivcher left the country and returned after Fujimori
resigned from office in November 2000.
95
96 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

administration, initially during the repression of guerrilla movements in the

early 1990s, and later after the government assumed authoritarian powers.
Second, the levels of violence show peaks and valleys in different countries, as
shown in Table 2. Even in the aforementioned countries, the number of mur-
dered journalists changed over time.
In the late 1990s, the situation for the Colombian press has been particularly
difficult (Caballero 1996; Simon 1999; Smyth 2000). While a decade earlier the
violence unleashed by the Medellín cartel was responsible for constant attacks
on the press, today the escalation of the armed conflict involving paramilitary
squads and guerilla organizations has affected journalists. The number of attacks
in Chile and Central American countries, with the exception of Guatemala, has
subsided. In the 1990s, the transition to democracy in Chile and the process of
pacification in Central America after a decade of civil war has ushered in better
conditions, which are reflected in the drastic drop in the number of attacks. In
contrast, the Argentine, Peruvian, and Mexican press have confronted more dif-
ficulties in the same period.
Third, the provincial press is more prone to be a victim of fatal attacks than the
metropolitan press. Table 3 indicates that 75 percent of murders and disappear-
ances have been registered in the interior of Latin American countries. While
journalists reporting for metropolitan media have been frequent targets of
intimidation, the majority of journalists murdered worked for small-town and
provincial newspapers. Brazil is an example of this trend: attacks on and murders
of journalists working for news organizations in Brasilia, Rio, and São Paulo have
been rare, but they have been widespread in the interior. Given the inefficiency
of the judiciary in several states to investigate and prosecute, legislators in the
National Congress proposed a law to allow federal courts to take those cases.
Finally, violence has not targeted all reporters but mostly muckraking jour-
nalists and news organizations. While the harassment of reporters and the
storming of newspapers were commonly linked to partisan and ideological con-
frontations in the past, today’s situation is different. Partisan and ideological
rivalries informed the confrontations between Colombia’s Liberals and Conser-
vatives that targeted journalists, the battles between the regime of General Juan
Perón and its opposition newspapers in Argentina in the 1940s and 1950s, and
state-sponsored persecution of left-wing reporters and news organizations dur-
ing authoritarian regimes, to name a few examples (UTPBA 1998). In contrast,
most recent attacks have been committed against journalists identified neither
with militancy in a political party or social movement nor with specific ideolo-
gies. A majority of the victims were reporters who, at the time of the attacks,
were working on controversial and sensitive issues such as corruption, drug traf-
ficking, the environment, and human rights abuses. Obviously, politics is not
absent in recent attacks, but the attacks are less colored by partisan motives than

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 Table 2
Number of journalists murdered, by country
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Total
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Argentina 1 1 1 3
Bolivia 0
Brazil 2 2 1 1 4 1 2 13
Chile 2 2
Colombia 4 13 5 10 1 4 2 3 1 4 5 52
Costa Rica 0
Dominican Republic 1 1
Ecuador 1 1
El Salvador 9 1 10
Guatemala 1 1 1 3 2 1 9
Honduras 1 1 2
Mexico 4 2 2 2 1 3 2 16
Nicaragua 0
Panama 1 1
Paraguay 1 1
Peru 1 5 2 6 3 1 2 20
Uruguay 0
Venezuela 2 1 3
Total 12 32 11 21 6 9 6 12 3 10 6 6 134
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (1997, 2000); Reporters sans Frontières (Annual Reports; see http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk).
97
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Table 3
Number of journalists murdered, by region
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Total

Metro 1 13 2 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 1 1 32
Interior 11 19 9 19 3 6 4 11 2 8 5 5 102
Total 12 32 11 21 6 9 6 12 3 10 6 6 134
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (1997, 2000); Reporters sans Frontières (Annual Reports; see http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk).
 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 99

in the past and more related to the reporting of sensitive issues that directly affect
organizations and individuals wielding power in today’s democracies.
Journalists have seemingly been targeted for their professional activities
rather than for their partisan or ideological sympathies. In the aftermath of the
brutal murder of an Argentine news photographer in 1997, the Buenos Aires
correspondent for the main Brazilian news weekly observes, “Newsphoto-
grapher [Jose Luis Cabezas] was a professional without known political partici-
pation. Hard-working and ambitious, he had a natural concern with career suc-
cess.” Military terror was responsible for the murder of one hundred journalists
in the 1970s. They were linked to left-wing parties, unions, and armed organiza-
tions. The death of Cabezas is different. “It’s the first case of a journalist assassi-
nated because of practicing his profession,” observes Noticias managing editor
Hector D’Amico (Moreira Leite 1997).
Antipress violence responds to the interest of individuals and organizations to
muffle or eliminate an emergent critical press. In countries where mainstream
media have historically cultivated close relations with official authorities, attacks
are a symptom of a less acquiescent press,a press that dares to take jabs at govern-
ment officials and look into the activities of paramilitary organizations and drug
cartels (Waisbord 2000).No need to resort to violence when news organizations
fully comply with official lines and are not interested in bringing different pow-
ers to public scrutiny. The present situation is not one of an all-out war against
the press but one in which targets are carefully picked. It has not been “the press”
as a whole that has been a target of violence but reporters and news organizations
that denounced acts of wrongdoing. In Mexico, publications that investigated the
linkages between drug barons and local police and judges, such as the Tijuana-
based Zeta, have been attacked and journalists harassed and murdered.
Reporters who wrote about police corruption, such as reporters from TV
Azteca, Reforma, and El Universal were also attacked, and a journalist with the
magazine Como was assassinated. In Peru, muckraking publications such as the
news weekly Caretas and the daily La República, as well as print and broadcast
investigative reporters, have been frequent targets of intimidation by military
and intelligence services during the Fujimori government. In an episode that
gained wide national and international repercussion, reporters for a news pro-
gram and the owner of the television station Frecuencia Latina were threatened
and had to leave the country in the aftermath of reports that denounced links
between army officers and drug cartels, an interview with an intelligence officer
who accused the army of having tortured her and murdered colleagues for alleg-
edly leaking information to the press about a plan to harass the press, and the
broadcast of conversations about the wiretapping of journalists.2

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100 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

The Crisis of the State

Antipress violence is not the result of sporadic, haphazard events: it is the

product of structural political conditions responsible for a generalized situation
of violence. It needs to be understood as a manifestation of the crisis of the state.
Following Max Weber’s (1978) definition,the essential characteristic of modern
states is the monopoly of the legitimate means of violence. The difficulty or, in
some cases, plain failure of states to fulfill one of the central functions has been a
distinctive feature of many Third World countries. This is a not novel situation.
Many states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America historically have had continuous
difficulties in wrestling the means of violence away from diverse groups. It is no
coincidence that the countries where attacks against the press have been regular
and lethal are those countries where the disintegration of the state or the inca-
pacity of the state to fit a Weberian definition have been more pronounced.By no
means is the press the only institution affected by violence. The breakdown of
state power and the resulting random and rampant violence certainly affects all
institutions and society at large. The press is a high-profile target, however, given
the fact that it often plays a central role amid violent politics, representing differ-
ent groups and taking sides. In some cases, an editorial commitment to a “culture
of peace” against actors responsible for violent acts (drug traffickers, death
squads, guerrillas) put some news organizations in the bull’s eye.
The crisis of the state is expressed in two situations: civil wars and uncivil
wars. In his perceptive study of violence, John Keane (1996:133, 141) distin-
guishes the two. The former is “a conflict within a society resulting from an
attempt to seize or maintain state power and its symbols of legitimacy by extrale-
gal, violent means.” The latter, instead, refers to localized, unstructured, scat-
tered violence that lacks the logic of conventional civil wars. “Today’s uncivil
wars ransack the legal monopoly of armed force long claimed by states,” Keane
writes. Contemporary Latin America is virtually exempt from civil wars. The
political situation in several Central American countries in the 1980s did fit
accepted definitions of civil war, given that different groups fought through vio-
lent means for the control of the state. During that decade, long-standing civil
wars in El Salvador and Guatemala and a revolutionary process in Nicaragua
were the catalysts and the expression of the profound crisis of the state. Thrown
into the same political turmoil responsible for the death, displacement, and exile
of thousands, journalists could not escape violence and were regularly caught in
the cross fire between guerrilla forces and status quo repression. In the 1990s,
the process of pacification put an end to civil wars in Central America.
Civil wars are not a reality today as they were decades ago, but uncivil wars, in
Keane’s sense, have become prevalent throughout the region. Political scientist
Guillermo O’Donnell (1993) has labeled this situation “the browning of Latin

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 101

America.” O’Donnell suggests that contemporary Latin America is criss-crossed

by shades of blue, green, and brown. Blue refers to

a high degree of presence of the state both functionally and territorially, that is, a
zone in which the rule of law is efficiently and equally applied across class and eth-
nic groups, and the bureaucracy is efficacious in administering policies across the
entire territory. A green zone [indicates] a high degree of the press of the state
across the territory of a given nation,but a significantly lower presence in terms of
the efficient and equal application of the rule of law. Brown [designates] a zone in
which the presence of the state is very low, or even non-existent. (P. 51)3

It is no coincidence that antipress violence has recently reached dramatic pro-

portions in countries where O’Donnell’s “brown hues” are widespread, such as
Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru; or, conversely, that attacks against
reporters have been minimal and no murders have been reported in countries
such as Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, which, to O’Donnell, “share the bluest
hue in Latin America” (p. 51). Except for those three countries, the crisis of state
rule has been aggravated in recent years throughout the region for reasons that
are impossible to discuss within the limits of this article.
A situation of uncivil war existed in other countries where insurrectionary
movements controlled areas and fended off the military actions of the central
government. In Peru, the situation changed after the Fujimori administration
squashed the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and
recuperated areas formerly under guerrilla rule. In Colombia, ongoing violence
perpetrated by guerrillas and paramilitary forces feeds antipress violence. Jour-
nalists have been intimidated and murdered, and the buildings of radio stations
and newspapers have been bombed.
In many countries, drug-related violence has deepened this situation. In
Colombia and northern Mexico, for example, drug trafficking has catapulted
drug lords into major power-holders in areas where the reach of the state (both
in terms of law enforcement and control of violence) is minimal and official cor-
ruption is widespread. In complicity or in opposition to local and national
authorities,they hold absolute control over determined geographical zones.Any
journalist reporting on drug issues faces not only the prospects of angering
narcotraficantes with no patience for critical thoughts and democratic debate but
also the passivity and/or disinterest of official authorities. The situation is even
more complicated as para-police and military squads created to combat drug
trafficking or guerrilla insurrection enjoy a great deal of autonomy and, if
accountable at all, only answer to military authorities.
The use of means of violence against citizens reflects not only the pervasive
influence of military and intelligence forces but also, more generally, the break-
down of the state. The weakness of mechanisms to check abuses perpetrated by

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102 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

the military and the police patently reveals the deficit of contemporary Latin
America democracies to institutionalize the rule of law. Democracy replaced
authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s, but states still fail to guarantee the
observance of basic constitutional rights. Nor do they protect the safety of
human life or an independent judiciary system. Moreover, as dozens of attacks
committed by paramilitary, intelligence, and police organizations attest, the
state has also been responsible for breaking laws.
The combination of powerful drug lords and corrupt officials, especially in
regions where guerrilla movements have been dominant in the past decade, has
proven to be lethal for journalists. As in the 1960s and 1970s, when guerrilla
movements gained strength throughout Latin America, insurrectionary groups
are still present in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. A complex web of interests
including drug lords, local bosses, police and military forces, and guerrillas have
been confirmed or suspected behind dozens of attacks against reporters. In
Colombia,

out of the four journalists who died in the line of duty [in 1997], one may have
been murdered by local police, another by a paramilitary group, and in a third
case, both the paramilitaries and the guerrillas are suspected. The opinion editor
of the Cali daily El País, was gunned down in front of his home by a professional
gunman only days after he wrote a column in favor of extraditing Colombian drug
traffickers to the United States. (Committee to Protect Journalists 1997).

Caught in the vortex of uncivil wars, dozens of journalists in Colombia,

Brazil, and Mexico have suffered intimidation and attacks. Urban areas are not
exempt from this situation, as illustrated by shantytowns governed by drug
lords, gangs, and police squads that operate autonomously from civilian powers.
But uncivil wars are more open and widespread, to use O’Donnell’s (1993) tax-
onomy, in the “brown” interior. Only one of the ten Mexican journalists mur-
dered between 1986 and 1996 worked in Mexico City. Paraguayan journalists
covering corruption and drug trafficking in the borders with Brazil and Argen-
tina have been more prone to attacks and intimidation than their colleagues in
the capital. There are slim chances that the murder of a little-known reporter
working for a small publication in the impoverished Brazilian interior or in the
Peruvian highlands would trigger wide repercussions. In cities and towns in the
interior, scores of cases have been reported of elected authorities aiming guns at
journalists and grabbing them by the throat. The frequent harassment of investi-
gative journalists with national and international reputations and contacts is evi-
dence that they are not free of attacks. Critical reporting turns well-known jour-
nalists into common targets of intimidation and harassment, but their
prominence in political and journalistic circles somewhat shields them from

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 103

lethal attacks. Without the visibility and prominence given by metropolitan

news media or effective checks on local powers, regional reporters are more
exposed to deadly attacks.
In countries in which the crisis of the state is not as acute as in countries that
had recently experienced civil wars, strong insurrectionary movements, and/or
military repression, antipress violence is inseparable from the ambiguous posi-
tion of civilian administrations in regard to press freedom. In Argentina,
although no evidence has been made public implicating members of the Menem
administration in hundreds of intimidations of journalists, the ambiguous posi-
tion of the government regarding press issues has created an atmosphere that
condones violence. President Carlos Menem’s verbal tirades against the press
and comments minimizing attacks were common during his two-term presiden-
tial tenure (1989-1999). When a reporter investigating connections between
political mafias and prominent politicians was roughed up, he matter-of-factly
observed that the attacks were “occupational hazards.” In the aftermath of an
exposé about the building of a large runway next to his hometown house,
Menem fired back, saying that the report was produced by “stupid, lying and
despicable [journalists] paid by the opposition.” During a press briefing for for-
eign correspondents in June 1997, Menem described Horacio Verbitsky, an
influential columnist for the Buenos Aires–based daily Página/12, as “one of the
biggest terrorists in Argentina.” Later the same year, President Menem endorsed
the “Ley del Palo,” paraphrasing (and misinterpreting) Benjamin Franklin’s ironic
thoughts on “the liberty of the cudgel.” Persuaded that criminal laws were inef-
fective and arbitrary, Franklin toyed with the idea that individuals could person-
ally punish others who have slandered them. His concern was to find a mecha-
nism to solve the problems created by the excesses of the liberty of the press.
Consequently, “the liberty of the cudgel” was imagined as a means to protect
individual reputation, as a complement, rather than as a substitute, to freedom of
the press (Smith 1988).The tongue-in-cheek,jocular tone of Franklin’s proposal
got lost when translated in a country reeling from the brutal assassination of
Cabezas and against the background of President Menem’s regular antipress
harangues. His subsequent explanation that it was a joking remark and request
for forgiveness were insufficient to dispel the concern caused by his earlier com-
ment (Verbitsky 1997).

Antipress Violence and Lawlessness

Is the state unable or unwilling to prevent such attacks and monitor the rule of
law? Are extralegal powers linked to either drug-trafficking organizations or
police and military squads completely beyond the control of elected authorities?
Or are civilian administrations unconcerned with the faith of journalists and

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104 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

other citizens who are victims of official and unofficial violence? Are govern-
ments lenient or weak in effectively exercising power and bringing justice to the
victims?
Answering these questions confronts the difficulty of singling out official
responsibilities in countless episodes and offering a comprehensive explanation.
Some cases show that governments have been directly responsible for the
attacks. Others, instead, attest to the privatization of violence, that is, the exis-
tence of hit men and death squads in the service of powerful bosses and drug
lords. State-sponsored violence and privatized violence are not separate but
related phenomena. Not only can the state not put an end to the autonomization
of violence, it was originally responsible for granting “licenses to kill” to police
and military officers as part of the repression of guerrilla movements and politi-
cal dissidents. Individuals who once staffed police departments and paramilitary
death squads now offer their skills to drug lords and corrupt politicians. Trained
by the state, they became “hand-for-hire” with the end of military regimes and, in
some cases, after civilian administrations deactivated the machine of violence
expanded by the dictatorships. The flip side of the privatization of violence is the
privatization of safety. Journalists chauffeured in armored cars and protected by
around-the-clock bodyguards or newsroom buildings tightly guarded by secu-
rity personnel and cordoned off from the streets patently express a situation in
which states, when not directly involved in the attacks, cannot protect
journalists.
When the state fails to centralize violence and the rule of law is weak, human
rights are the victim. Whereas the state qua perpetrator was responsible for
human rights violations during military dictatorships, the state qua guarantor is
responsible for being inefficient in enforcing human rights principles in contem-
porary democracies. Amid this situation, journalism (and freedom of expression
in general) is vulnerable. The basic rights of journalists, and of any other citizen,
are under threat.
The difference is that unlike average citizens, journalists, especially those
affiliated with major news organizations in metropolitan areas, have immediate
access to the means for getting publicity about attacks. Large media organiza-
tions as well as national and international organizations offer the possibility of
“deterrence by publicity.” Committee to Protect Journalists director Ann Coo-
per (2000:36) affirms that “exposure can protect journalists.” Putting the spot-
light on the fate of journalists has proven to be effective in many cases, but it does
not address the structural conditions that breed violence. Needless to say, public
attention does not guarantee invulnerability. Well-known journalists have been
killed in broad daylight. Publicity, however, somehow protects journalists from
fatal attacks. The condition is different for journalists (and citizens) in non-urban
and marginal areas. Removed from the fishbowl of the big media, they lack built-
in defenses and thus are more susceptible to police brutality or paramilitary

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 105

repression. This is tangible in “brown” areas subjected to the rule of drug lords
and paramilitary groups. Disregarding the old warning about not picking a fight
with someone who has a barrel of ink,perpetrators confidently attack journalists
as impunity rules. The sword continues to be mightier than the pen.
Notwithstanding the fact that journalists are linked to the powerful echo
chambers of the newsrooms and local and international organizations, antipress
violence goes on as justice is rarely, if ever, served. Besides local and federal gov-
ernments that do not monitor the respect of basic human rights, the ineffective-
ness of the judicial system exacerbates the situation of lawlessness. Perpetrators
are rarely captured; if captured, they are rarely brought to court; and cases are
often shelved and forgotten. For example, only in 6 cases out of 108 murders of
Colombian journalists between 1977 and 1995 were the perpetrators—not the
instigators—identified and captured. If impunity does not directly encourage
violence, it legitimizes violence as a means to police civic life and further con-
tributes to the difficulties of consolidating accountability mechanisms. The issue
at stake is not so much whether societies are equipped with legislation that could
prevent crimes against reporters from happening; it is actually the weakness of
law enforcement. This problem is certainly not unique to violence against the
press but is another manifestation of the larger difficulties of institutionalizing
the rule of law and eliminating impunity in the region.

Globalization and the Demise of the State

Regardless of ideological assumptions and sympathies, competing models of

press and democracy assume that states guarantee minimal institutional condi-
tions (Curran 1996; Nerone 1995). The existence of a state that effectively con-
trols the means of violence and enforces the law underlies the liberal model of
the press. Critics of the liberal model similarly assume the existence of an effec-
tive state. Because both models reflect the political evolution of Western coun-
tries in the twentieth century, particularly after World War II, neither one ade-
quately addresses the situation of the press in the context of state breakdown.For
liberal theorists, the problems for the press are fundamentally legal in nature,
rooted in governments that cannot tolerate dissent and manipulate laws to pre-
vent press criticism. For progressive and radical analysts, a complex network of
business interests and oligopolies are the most formidable adversaries for the
press to serve democratic ideals. Both positions are correct to understand the
difficulties that the press faces in postauthoritarian societies. Legal obstacles and
business pressures prevent the affirmation of critical journalism. Neither model,
however, addresses the question of antipress violence in situations of state disin-
tegration. They presuppose the existence of a state as a coherent, centralized
organ of coercion. In both of them, an effective state is the invisible backbone
that the press requires to function in a democracy. What is often assumed is that

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106 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

the existence of a strong state, in terms of its ability to centralize violence and to
enforce the respect for human rights, is a fundamental condition for the press,
and more broadly, for the existence of democratic governance. Whenever states
are weak, as in situations of civil and uncivil wars, freedom of expression suffers.
The absence of the state results in a Hobbesian scenario in which the press is cer-
tainly not the only, but is one of the most visible, victims.
This situation brings us to a central theme in contemporary writings about
globalization: the weakness of the state (Van Creveld 1999). This situation is a
matter of celebration rather than of concern for both globalization and
antiglobalization positions. Corporate and “free-flow-of-information” apolo-
gists applaud the fact that states face tremendous difficulties in taming the jug-
gernaut of global commerce and communications. The end of national econo-
mies and nonstop, cross-border flows of information and money usher in a brave
new capitalist world and promises of abundant riches and knowledge (Wriston
1992; Ohmae 1995). Antiglobalization advocates find this scenario troublesome
(Kalb et al. 2000). It promotes and legitimizes the consolidation of global capi-
talism, and it has damaging consequences in terms of social, environmental, cul-
tural, and human rights issues. For them, however, the flip side of corporate-led
globalization is “globalization from below,” the possibility that global democratic
movements can increasingly monitor states, particularly those with long record
of abuses and disregard for human rights in the Third World. Global movements
and organizations pave the way for a truly global democracy that saps the
(authoritarian) foundations of the state.
What falls through the cracks between two positions is that for the press (as
well as for other democratic institutions), the prospect and reality of an absent
and/or minimal state offers little reason to rejoice. Notwithstanding the affir-
mation of a global civil society,the state remains a central institution for ensuring
basic conditions for the functioning of the press. No alternative institution to the
modern state currently exists that can condense power and institutionalize con-
ditions for order. As of now, the alternative to weak and fragmented states is not
the rosy picture of global commerce or global democracy but, instead, absolute
chaos. As the situation of the “new global disorder” painfully demonstrates, the
impossibility of securing minimal political order raises the specter of perpetual
violence that brings down democracy and its institutions (Bauman 1998). The
efforts of global organizations to promote better conditions for the press are
certainly important. It is undeniable that international law is helpful in assist-
ing journalists and prosecuting those responsible for attacks against reporters
(Perkins 2001). Their impact is limited without a democratic state that effec-
tively centralizes violence and imposes the rule of law. Notwithstanding the rise
of a global public sphere and its important contributions to democratic citizen-
ship worldwide, the work of journalists is mired in local conditions. Antipress

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 Waisbord / Antipress Violence and the Crisis of the State 107

violence ultimately rests on the inability of the state to suppress violence and
enforce laws. Without the regulation of violence through democratic mecha-
nisms, the press is caught in the crosswinds of extralegal, unaccountable vio-
lence. A fully functioning state that replaces a stateless society is desirable, for it
is, ideally, the only institutional arrangement to secure conditions for journalis-
tic labor and to enforce laws that protect the human rights of journalists.

Conclusions

The prospects for a democratic press are contingent on the strengthening of a

public sphere that can keep both the state and the market at a distance. In Latin
America, the power of commercial interests, best expressed in the ongoing
conglomerization of the mass media, increasingly narrows the space for news
organizations to survive without bowing to the visible hand of the market. The
endurance of antipress violence indicates that, unlike in developed democracies,
state-sponsored violence and the ineptitude of the state to protect rights also
undercuts the possibilities for a democratic press.
Civil society cannot exist as long as violence persists. In the region, the diffi-
culty is not only the constitution of a press autonomous from the state but also
the existence of a civil society decimated by uncivil, violent practices. Antipress
violence magnifies the fragility of democratic institutions in countries that are
still experiencing or are recovering from internal wars. States continue to expe-
rience severe problems in successfully achieving the basic tasks of any modern
state. Carrying the heavy legacy of violence inherited from dictatorial periods,
Latin America continues to be racked by the discretionary use of state force and
the violence perpetrated by criminal organizations that escape democratic con-
trol. The ambiguous attitude of government officials toward the protection of
journalists also fans the flames of violence. So the prospects of affirming a demo-
cratic press are seriously constrained when the public sphere, ideally a realm of
pluralism and tolerance of dissent, is shredded into islands of civility. Beyond
those islands, the press, particularly if critical of powers, faces the violence of
uncivil wars.

Notes

1. The situation in Cuba is not considered, as it is the only country in the region that is not a
“transitional” or “consolidated” democracy.
2. Threats and harassment of a group of journalists are considered as a single attack.
3. The still unsolved murder of radio journalist Parmenio Medina in Costa Rica in 2001 was
exceptional in a country where few episodes of antipress violence have been recorded in the
last decades.

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108 Press/Politics 7(3) Summer 2002

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Biographical Note

Silvio Waisbord is director of the Journalism Resources Institute and an associate professor in the
Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. He holds a Ph.D. in sociol-
ogy from the University of California, San Diego, and a Licenciatura in sociology from the Uni-
versity of Buenos Aires. He was a fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania and the Media Studies Center.His most recent book is Watchdog Journalism
in South America (Columbia, 2000). He is also coeditor of Media and Globalization (Rowan &
Littlefield, 2001) and Latin Politics, Global Media (Texas, 2002).
Address: 612 E. Capitol St., #3, NE, Washington, D.C. 20003; e-mail: waisbord@scils.
rutgers.edu.

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