News/Media
Overview
Like elsewhere in the world, Chile’s media is highly concentrated and tends to reflect the interest and priorities of the dozen or so economic groups that control the country’s economy. These groups decide where advertising budgets are spent and use their influence to control and direct news information appearing in the nation’s media.
It is also important to know that Chile’s universities are producing far more journalists than can be employed in the media, which means journalists are very poorly paid and many migrate to public relations kinds of jobs. Serious investigative journalism is NOT supported by the nation’s private sector media groups.
Print Media
Almost all print media is owned by two large economic groups. The flagship publication in the Edwards family media group is El Mercurio, while the flagship publication for the Copesa group is La Tercera.
There is a kind of social stratification of the media, too, with “higher end” newspapers like El Mercurio and La Tercera catering to the educated and professional classes and “lower end” publications like La Quarta and Las Ultimas Noticias catering to the less educated, lower classes. La Quarta is a generic “tits and ass” kind of newspaper, while Las Ultimas Noticias focuses on the intimacies of leading actors, actrices and other personalities.
The state-owned La Nacion newspaper generally reflects the views of the government in power – currently the center-left Concertación coalition. It is the only newspaper in Chile which regularly covers human rights issues.
The complacency of the privately owned print news media has been upset this past decade by the arrival of “Publimetro,” a free, morning newspaper handed out to commuters all over the country – not just Santiaguinos boarding the metro. The Swedish-owned Publimetro has succeeded where many other newspapers have failed – successfully making inroads into Chile’s very inbred news and advertising media conglomerates.
Both El Mercurio and La Tercera strongly supported the September 11, 1973 military coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power.Throughout Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship neither paper could confirm a single disappearance or torture case. Neither newspaper has apologized for the cowardliness of their editorial line during the Pinochet years.
(Post dictatorship investigations by government reconciliation committees established more than 27,000 cases of torture and more than 3,000 deaths or disappearances attributed to Pinochet-era operatives.)
Since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990 not a single new national publication has taken root, other than several business-oriented magazines and the “light news” found in the Publimetro newspaper. The only real exception has been the sharply barbed and very satirical weekly, The Clinic. The Clinic’s creation was a direct response to the jailing of former dictator Pinochet in a London clinic for human rights violations.
That said, The Clinic has succeeded entirely on the strength of its kiosk sales (70,000 weekly press run), and not on advertising revenues.
Since Chile’s advertising agencies are decidedly in bed with the national business groups controlling the nation’s economy, and newspapers follow their lead. This means decidedly pro-business news copy on very complex and important issues – like Chile’s treatment of native Mapuche people upset with a feudal-like existence dictated by powerful forestry companies (the Angelini and Matte business groups).
It also means strong print media support for horrific, billion dollar energy ventures like the HidroAysen dam project slated for Patagonia (owned by Spanish/Italian transnational Endesa and the Matte business group) and/or the nuclear energy lobby. Nor has the national media questioned the explosive growth in coal/diesel burning power generators, notwithstanding strong and organized citizen opposition to both.
Television
Television media has a similar history, with all channels decidedly non-critical of Chile’s ruling plutocracy. The state-run Channel 7 should be an exception, but is controlled by a government appointed board – oftentimes political hacks that that zealously work to tone down or censure any “questionable” material or programs.
Radio
There is a much greater diversity of radio stations, and many that are keen to show their independence from the political and business powers that run the country. Thus Radio Cooperativa, Radio Bio-Bio and others provide a bit of an anecdote to the mostly business controlled new media.
Internet
There are various new Internet news sites that have sprung up around the country. The most successful has been El Mostrador, which – thanks to political connections – has secured substantial advertising income from government legal ads.