An introductory look at the Paraguayan news media

: Paraguay, a small, land-locked country bounded by bigger neighbors, has received little attention from media scholars. The purpose of this article is to help fill this absence by describing the history and contemporary situation of journalism in Paraguay for an international audience. Paraguayan media have reflected traits and trends in the country’s political system since its founding. During the First Paraguayan Republic (1811-1870), when defense of independence from Spain and larger neighbors was paramount, the state held a monopoly over the mechanisms to communicate with the population and neither opposition press nor voices disputed the rule of independence leader José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1811-1840) (ACOSTA, 2008; ORUÉ POZZO, 2012). Paraguay’s media system and journalism have several traits noticeable in its neighbors, including political parallelism, censorship, ownership concentration, violence against journalists and the abrupt termination of state-sponsored reforms targeting media pluralism. However, these similarities are grounded in a unique history and geographical position that make Paraguay an interesting case for understanding the localization of region media trends. In particular, the country’s defense of its independence and strongman or single party rule have shaped how media and journalists operate today.


Introduction
As a small, land-locked country bounded by bigger neighbors, Paraguay has received little attention from media scholars despite what its system illuminates about the localization of wider regional trends (FUNDACIÓN TELEFÓNICA, 2007;GARCÍA BÉJAR, 2009;ORUÉ POZZO, 1997;2002). The purpose of this article is to help fill that absence by describing the history and contemporary situation of journalism in Paraguay for an international audience.
The country's media reflect trends in neighboring South American systems, but in ways shaped by its long history of strongman and single-party rule, geographic isolation and horrific losses of population during wars with neighboring Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Most notably, Paraguayan journalism features high degrees of political parallelism (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Historically this was because of centralization of power in authoritarian leaders who fought to keep the country independent despite enormous costs. Today, political parallelism reflects links between private media owners and politicians, as well as the termination of a brief period of media reform. Another important characteristic is the presence of censorship or self-censorship, due to the lack of autonomy from politicians as well as private media ownership concentration. Finally, also like elsewhere, anti-press violence has increased in areas where criminal and political elements overlap.

The beginnings of Paraguayan journalism
Paraguayan media have reflected traits and trends in the country's political system since the country's founding. During the First Paraguayan Republic (1811-1870), when defense of independence from Spain and larger neighbors was paramount, the state held a monopoly over the mechanisms to communicate with the population and neither opposition press nor voices disputed the rule of independence leader José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1811-1840 (ACOSTA, 2008;ORUÉ POZZO, 2012).
During that time, border security was increased to prevent visitors from bringing mail or newspapers that would reach the population (CHAVES, 1958). After Francia, the state-civil society relationship changed under a development-oriented president, but the government continued to dominate communication processes (ORUÉ POZZO, 2012). The need of the new republic to be internationally recognized as independent launched the country's first newspaper, on April 26, 1845. The weekly El Paraguayo Independiente was printed by the state and Paraguayan President Carlos Antonio López (1844López ( -1862 was editor (GONZÁLEZ DE BOSIO, 2008). Indeed, Paraguay's Journalist Day is celebrated every April 26, intertwining contemporary Paraguayan journalism with the founding of the government newspaper.

Propaganda during the Paraguayan War
The Paraguayan War against Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance, cost the lives of 70 percent of Paraguay's population. When the war started, several new government newspapers and magazines appeared to promote patriotism and morale (FARINA, 2013). The newspapers not only channeled government information to the population and troops, but also stereotyped the enemy. The newspapers utilized the indigenous Guarani language, one of two official languages in Paraguay, not exclusively but, for the first time, systematically (CABALLERO Y FERREIRA, 2008).

Postwar journalism and the beginning of the XX century
The postwar begins as an era of liberal ideas, also known as the Second Paraguayan Republic , where new political parties and newspapers were founded by the same men (ABENTE, 1989;CABALLERO AQUINO, 1986)

The Chaco War and the dictatorships of Morínigo and Stroessner
The Chaco war with Bolivia (1932Bolivia ( -1935 continued the trend of patriotism in the Paraguayan press initiated during The Paraguayan War, but this time in privately owned newspapers. The Chaco war conditioned journalists to produce biased reports supporting the troops, promoting nationalism and the defense of national traditions, and discrediting and degrading the Bolivian troops and their political leaders, and locally, attacking all who opposed the war (ORUÉ POZZO, 2007).
The political engagement mission of the Paraguayan press was in place when a civil war in 1947 divided society. With the defeat of the democratic sector that included liberals, febreristas (democratic socialists), communists, and sectors of the military, a significant number of journalists went into exile due to the systemic persecution exercised by the victorious faction: The Colorado Party. The Colorados won on all fronts, political and military, imposing strong censorship that ended the use of journalism as a tool for political commitment (ORUÉ POZZO, 2007).
Higinio Morínigo's regime (1940Morínigo's regime ( -1948  Live radio also became more challenging during this period, demanding local authorities explain their actions to the population. Radio Ñanduti, operated by owner, journalist, and broadcaster Humberto Rubín, founded his family-operated radio station in 1962. This challenge was not appreciated by the National Telecommunications Administration, which interfered with the station's transmission from 1978 until the station's closure in 1987. Meanwhile, the two television channels, TV 9, owned by Stroessner relatives, and channel 13, owned by a private firm regulated by the government, were easy to control (BAREIRO, 1987).

Democratic transition
A military coup ousting Stroessner in 1989 had a positive impact on press freedom, but media pluralism remained limited (Segovia, 2009). ABC Color, radio Ñanduti and other outlets reopened and the government was not able to control them as it did during the Stroessner years ( The development of a network of alternative community-based media outlets included allocation of advertising resources, which had formerly been allocated to the dominant commercial media producers. Social organizations found easier access to media distribution of their messages through the community stations, increasing pluralism in the overall media system. Additionally, the Subdivision of State Media strengthened existing state-owned media and created new outlets to improve government communication, which had formerly relied on commercial media as intermediaries (SEGOVIA, 2009). TV Pública also opened in 2011 and presented a more socially inclusive style of journalism (RSF, 2012d).

Parliamentary coup: regressing
The return of a media system excluding the voices of marginalized communities and progressive voices began with Lugo's destitution on June 22, 2012. Lugo was ousted by a highly criticized parliamentary impeachment process that, although it was eventually approved by the Paraguayan courts, was criticized as not following due process. Lugo's defense had only two hours to review the accusatory documentation.
A process that is supposed to take weeks, only took a few hours.

Legal framework: 1992 Constitution and other laws
Despite the intrusion of politics in the media sphere, the 1992 Paraguayan Constitution is one of the most advanced in the region when it comes to protecting press freedom and freedom of speech, and access to public information. The Paraguayan Constitution protects the interests of citizens and also those of journalists, photographers and media owners. Additionally, it clearly prohibits governments from closing media outlets for being against their policies (FERNÁNDEZ BOGADO, 2011).
The Constitution defends, in its article 26, freedom of speech and press freedom. It also defends the dissemination of ideas and opinions without censorship and it has several articles that deal specifically with these topics. For example, article by stating that media outlets won't be closed or suspended. This article also regulates advertising by protecting "the rights of children, the youth, the illiterate, the consumer Article 28 recognizes citizen's rights to receive truthful information and guarantees the right to reply. That is "every person affected by the dissemination of false, distorted or ambiguous information has the right to claim for its rectification or clarification in the same media outlet and in the same condition the previous The organization in charge of regulating telecommunications and broadcasting media is the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL). This is an autonomous entity whose board is nominated by the Executive Power, so it is not politically independent. CONATEL is "responsible for administering the radioelectric spectrum, control compliance with legislation from its operators, provide licenses and authorizations to offer services and apply sanctions in case of legislation violations" (OBSERVACOM, 2014).
This law also establishes broadcasting frequencies for State media: one TV frequency and all the needed local frequencies to cover the whole country and one AM and one FM radio frequency in each department. However, there were not public TV stations in Paraguay until 2011 (Decree N°6.975), during Lugo's presidency (OBSERVACOM, 2014).
The constitutional framework addressing press freedom and freedom of speech should guarantee journalistic autonomy (LÓPEZ & SOTO VERA, 2015). However, these constitutional ideals are often violated. International press rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders (2006) have claimed on several occasions that CONATEL is not impartial when giving licenses to community radio stations, favoring commercial radio stations and thereby limiting pluralism in the media sphere.

Media concentration
The media map in Paraguay is extremely concentrated mostly around these three groups: Zuccolillo Group, Vierci Group, and Cartes Group. Additionally Channel 9 SNT, Channel 5 Paravisión, Channel 2 C9N, Channel 12 Paraná TV, Channel 10 Sur TV, and radio RQP. Together with the Vierci Group, Albavisión concentrates most TV networks, between these two they own seven of the nine existing frequencies (PLUS Research, 2018).
To this list, needs to be added the holding led by Ángel Aguilera which owns Channel Venus TV (cable), Radio La Unión 800 AM, Radio Aspen 102.7 FM, and Radio Venus 105.1 FM. Another important holding is led by Christian Chena, owner of Radio 1000 AM, 40 principales, and news portals RDN and epa.com.py (PLUS RESEARCH, 2018). Finally, another businessman that owns more than one media outlet is Fernando Rodríguez, owner of Diario 5Días and 5Días TV (cable) (PLUS RESEARCH, 2018).

Attacks on the press and self-censorship
Media concentration is a threat to pluralism and democracy, but another big threat is the conditions many journalists in Paraguay have to confront daily, especially in the border region where crime and corruption overlap. Since the beginning of the XXI century 11 journalists, one journalism student, one citizen journalist and one press official were murdered (See Table 1

Press freedom
Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House have rankings they use to classify press freedom and freedom of speech in different countries around the world.
These rankings measure pluralism and independence of media outlets, safety and respect for journalists' freedom.
Freedom House (2018) claimed that the Paraguayan democracy is dominated by the conservative Colorado Party and it is a country with high levels of corruption, organized crime, where rural and indigenous communities' rights are not very well respected. Freedom House (2019) states the constitutional rights of press freedom and freedom of speech are inconsistently applied across the board. Direct pressure from criminal groups and corrupt officials foster self-censorship, and occasionally journalists are victims of violent attacks. That's why from a 1-7 scale, where 1 is most free and 7 is least free Paraguay has maintained itself in a 3 ranking since 2004, which puts the country in the partly free category (see Table 2). (2019)

Conclusion
Journalism is key for building an informed and participatory society that is able to develop a democracy (DAHL, 1971;GUNTHER & MUGHAN, 2000). Journalists through their stories should inform people about irregularities and abuse of power using facts in a fairly and responsibly. Therefore, they need to enjoy press freedom and freedom of speech. However, in Paraguay these liberties have been under attack since the country's independence. In its origins, Francia created a conservative model that limited and restricted rights. This model continued with very small changes until Stroessner's dictatorship. Stroessner then censured and closed several media outlets.
After the dictatorship, journalism practices became more important, but even today, still, journalists continue fighting against repercussions, threats, extorsions and murders.
Even if the legal framework that rules press freedom and freedom of speech in Paraguay can be used as a model for many countries that restrict these liberties, the difficulties for its implementation make the law less perfect. Media concentration and the number of journalists murdered since the beginning of the XXI century not only represent an attack to journalists and the press, but to democracy in Paraguay.
Unfortunately, this South American country is still fighting to free itself from the silence code and complicity that reigned during the dictatorship years and beyond.