Argentina's media wars

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner probably still can't believe she signed a newly minted media law on on Saturday, after a hot-blooded 20 hour debate in the Senate that ended with an early morning street party outside Congress. The law, which passed 44-24 effectively limits media monopolies, replacing an archaic law passed by a military dictatorship government in 1980.

But every fairy-tale has to have an evil monster, in this case the media conglomerate Grupo Clarín, which has fiercely opposed the Kirchner government and which, under the new law's rules, will now have to sell off radio stations and television channels:

"The government is going after the media with all its remaining power," Clarín Editor Ricardo Roa wrote Saturday. "It has rushed through a misleading law that seems to be progressive but in reality only sets us back: it will promote a press that is weaker and more docile."

Clarín, of course, has advocates. They question the one year limit to sell assets that the law imposes, and whether this will not drive prices down, allowing pro-government buyers to snap up the stations.

Offsetting these questions is the glowing support of varied sectors of Argentine society and the international, like United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank La Rue, who called the new law "an example for other countries."

Perhaps the most interesting reaction was that of the opposition leader, Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires, whose party has now proposed a law giving them regulation power over the city's cable TV.

History repeats: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Photo: JUAN MABROMAT/AFP