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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Chile has a long tradition of an active press, closely
tied to
the country's competitive political parties. Prior to the
1973
coup, Santiago had ten daily newspapers spanning the
ideological
spectrum. These included, on the left, the Communist El
Siglo, the Socialist Ultima Hora, and the
far-left
papers Puro Chile and Clarín. The Christian
Democrats
owned La Prensa. Newspapers identified with the
center-right
or far right included El Mercurio (founded in
1827), Las
Ultimas Noticias (founded in 1902), La Segunda
(founded
in 1931), La Tercera de la Hora (founded in 1950),
and La
Tribuna.
The wide ideological range of Chile's major newspapers
did not
mean that circulation was evenly distributed. All of the
newspapers
supporting the Allende government had a combined
circulation of
less than 250,000, while, for instance, La Tercera de
la
Hora, a center-right paper, had a circulation of
200,000. By
far the most important newspaper in Chile has been El
Mercurio, with a Sunday circulation of 340,000 and
wide
influence in opinion circles. The El Mercurio Company,
easily the
most powerful newspaper group in Chile, also owns La
Segunda, the sensationalist Las Ultimas
Noticias, and
regional papers. With its close ties to the Navy of Chile
(Armada
de Chile), El Mercurio played a critical role in
mobilizing
support against the Allende government, openly supporting
the
military coup.
After the coup, Chile's independent press disappeared.
The
papers of the left were closed immediately, and the
centrist La
Prensa stopped publishing a few months later.
Newspapers that
kept publishing strongly supported the military government
and
submitted to its guidelines on sensitive issues; they also
developed a keen sense of when to censor themselves. The
print
media became even more concentrated in the hands of two
groups: the
Edwards family, owners of El Mercurio, with
approximately 50
percent of all circulation nationwide, and the Picó Cañas
family,
owners of La Tercera de la Hora, with another 30
percent.
Only toward the end of the military government did two
opposition
newspapers appear--La Época, founded in 1987 and
run by
Christian Democrats, and Fortín Mapocho, a
publication run
by groups on the left that became a daily newspaper in
1987. By
1990 Chile had approximately eighty newspapers, including
thirtythree dailies.
During the years of military rule, opposition opinion
was
reflected in limited-circulation weekly magazines, the
first being
Mensaje, a Jesuit publication founded in 1951. Over
time,
magazines such as Hoy, a Christian Democratic
weekly started
in 1977; Análisis and Apsi, two leftist
publications
that began reaching a national audience in 1983; and the
fortnightly Cauce, established in 1983, all
circulated under
the often realized threat of censorship, confiscation of
their
publications, and arrests of reporters and staff. In
perhaps the
worst case of government suppression, Cauce,
Apsi,
Análisis, and Fortín Mapocho were all shut
down from
October 1984 to May 1985. After the restoration of
democracy, two
conservative weekly magazines were founded that were
opposed to the
Aylwin government were the influential ¿Qué Pasa?
(founded
in 1971) and Ercilla (begun in 1936). By 1990 Chile
had more
than twenty major current affairs periodicals.
The return of civilian government did not lead to an
explosion
of new publications. Both Época and Fortín
Mapocho,
which had received some support from foreign sources,
faced
enormous financial challenges in competing with the
established
media. Fortín folded, and Época finally was
sold to
a business group, which retained the paper's standards of
objective
reporting. El Mercurio continued to dominate the
print
medium and remained the most influential newspaper in the
country.
The El Mercurio Company remained closely tied to business
groups
that had supported the military regime but made efforts,
particularly through La Segunda, to present
balanced and
fair reporting. The only openly pro-CPD newspaper in Chile
was the
government-subsidized financial paper, La Nación,
which
reflected the views of the authorities.
Radio traditionally has been dominated by progovernment
stations, the most notable exceptions being Radio
Cooperativa, run
by Christian Democrats, and Radio Chilena, run by the
Roman
Catholic Church. At first the size of the audience for
these two
stations did not approach the listenership levels of
Minería,
Portales, and Agricultura--stations identified with the
business
community. Radio Tierra, claiming to be the first
all-women radio
station in the Americas, had identified exclusively with
women
since its establishment in 1983
(see
Telecommunications
, ch. 3).
Although the opposition had some print outlets, it had
no
access to television. Not until 1987, in the months
leading up to
the plebiscite, did opposition leaders gain limited access
to
television. The medium was strictly controlled by the
authorities
and by network managers: the University of Chile, the
Pontifical
Catholic University of Chile, and the National Television
Network
of Chile--Channel 7 (Televisión Nacional de Chile--Canal
7).
Competitive politics transformed television news
broadcasting,
introducing numerous talk shows that focus on politics.
Channel 7,
the official station of the military government, was
reorganized by
the junta after Pinochet's defeat as a more autonomous
entity
presenting a broad range of views and striving for more
impartial
news presentation. The station with the widest audience in
Chile in
the early 1990s was the Pontifical Catholic University of
Chile's
Channel 13, offering a right-of-center editorial line.
Other
channels with a more regional focus included Channel 5 of
Valparaíso, operated by the Catholic University of
Valparaíso
(Televisión Universidad Católica de Valparaíso--Canal 5);
Channel
11, operated in Santiago by the University of Chile
(Corporación de
Televisión de la Universidad de Chile--Canal 11); and two
commercial channels, Valparaíso's Channel 4 and Santiago's
Red
Televisiva Megavisión--Channel 9, owned by the Pinto
Claude Group
and directed by Ricardo Claro. In May 1993, the Luksic
Group
entered the private television market by acquiring a 75
percent
share of Maxivisión (TV MAX), broadcast by microwave on
UHF
(ultrahigh frequency) in the Metropolitan Region of
Santiago.
The National Council of Television (Consejo Nacional de
Televisión) was charged with regulating the airwaves and
setting
broadcast standards. Its jurisdiction in matters of
censorship was
unclear in the wake of Supreme Court rulings challenging
its
decisions.
Data as of March 1994
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