Do what I Say but Not What I Do: 30 years of Covering Media State Regulation in Argentina

Abstract

The independence of journalism and pluralism are fundamental components of freedom of expression, frequently invoked by the media to defend or criticize proposals for media regulation. However, its media coverage has received little attention from public policy studies. In order to account for the changes and continuities in the discourse on editorial independence in two communication media, this paper analyzes the evolution of coverage on media regulation in the Argentine newspapers Clarín and Página/12 over four decades. We examined the articles published on media and telecommunications regulation projects (n=140) during the years 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018. This work contributes to the literature on the links between journalistic ideals and practice, identifying the use of different strategies by newspapers to defend their position throughout the period. In the conclusions, we reflect on the distance between the journalistic ideal and professional practice in a concentrated and polarized media scene.