A student group called Germen, hosted a talk with lawyer and journalist Mario Wainfeld at Universidad de Buenos Aires. Mr. Wainfeld talked about his experiences in his career and journalism in Argentina. Interesting topics were discussed with old and current events.
Mr. Wainfeld talked about how politics and journalism come hand in hand in Argentina, just like in the rest of the world. Depending on the newspaper, the content becomes one sided most of the times. This is because of the “gatekeepers” or editors accomplishing what the higher-ups are demanding.
This shows how some of the media control content to benefit their political views, companies, and politicians. In the past, some of the nation's companies were accomplices with military regimes and not reporting what was going on, keeping the masses in the dark. Many of these newspapers are owned by big companies, so the content can be spread in more ways of communications. He states in the past ten years, people have been more avid in the media, questioning the content these newspapers are producing. He also mentions about his colleagues, some work for opposing political views or other newspapers. What is interesting here is that they all get along. In Argentina, the media creates negative views of events, denouncing it's the government's fault and at the same time creating fear. The task of the area of communications is to communicate rather than to denounce. For example, communicating about a sickness rather than telling people how to prevent it and what bad things can happened to the individual.
Another topic Mr. Wainfeld mentioned was: if a "white knight" appears, it will be hard for the masses to trust them. Since society has been exposed to all this negatively, it will take time for this new organization or company to gain followers. The company will be transparent, honest, open and independent from these big corporations. A company of the people for the people... but how long will it be independent until some corporation buys it? That is the question.
