News Channels

[BANiels]

Hi, i will be going to BA soon for work and I am trying to find some information about ways to get to learn Argentina a bit better. I hope this is the correct place for this post..

I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers about channels that provide the news. I am looking for some divers channels to broaden my knowledge. Could you guys tell me what the Argentinian sources are? Like for instance, a Argentinian newspaper a bit similar to the NY Times or USA Today is....

I am trying to soak up as much info as possible to get a head start Could anyone fill in this list for me?

Newspapers
- Serious newspaper: in USA: New York Times. In Argentina you have...?
- Large sensational newspaper: USA Today or The Sun. In Argentina you have...?

TV
- Serious news program: In USA: Charlie Rose or Meet the Press. In Argentina you have...?
- Large news channel: in USA: MSNBC News. In Argentina you have...?
- News sensation: in USA: Fox News. In Argentina you have...?

Radio
- Large radio station: in USA: National Public Radio. In Argentina you have...?

Online
- large news webpage such as Huffington Post. In Argentina you have...?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[thomsono1912]

Buenos aires herald for online news... That's all I need, usually the juicy stuff gets posted here on the forum anyway.

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

Have a look at infobae.com, there are the days 5 top stories in English. Also check out bubble.com.ar, it's in English but in a slightly satirical take on the news. Manages to be amusing and informative, have a look at the sunday round up if you want to get a birds eye view of the past few month's events.

La Nacion - Centre Right, non Clarin group.

Clarin - controversial anti-govt, rabidly anti govt. Owned by the medial mogul Magnetto who owns ...mmm...everything in the media that isn't La Nacion or public broadcasting, subject of a years old anti monopoly case. Multiple tv and radio stations to back it up.

Pagina 12 - Govt mouthpiece, uncritical of the govt. Propaganda, but well produced.

BA Herald - Trading on past glories, was anti-dictatorship when it was dangerous to be so, currently anti-govt (when I say anti govt i mean anti Kircher, aka anti-K). for me now it is almost unreadable. It is the Pagina 12 of the US led anti K critics. Articles are written from a distance to express an opinion, facts and research and sadly decent writing/grammar are long tools of a bygone era. Shame, needs a refresh.

Argentina Independet (online, now in print although I have yet to see a copy): Left leaning English language independent site. Bit thin on content. Regularly no more than a handful of comments on their facebook links.

In English I would follow the bubble on twitter, and some of the associates journalists. In Spanish i read la nacion with a sceptical eye and watch local news on canal trece..but really to find out what the weather is like and what traffic incidents or minor crimes have happened on the day.

TV...pretty much a waste of time, 24hr news channels recycling their message with blatant bias. Interview their preferred politicians and stay away from investigative journalism. Jorge Lanata working currently for Clarin has a series of tabloid journalism/"comedy" shows which have highlight recent corruption scandals..low brow, but the revelations are initeresting.

There is no independent media here, it's probably scarce around the world but here it is so biased on either side to be almost invalid.

 

[Matiasba]

The two bigger newspaper, La Nacion & Clarin, are right wing, and supported the last dicctatorship, where we had 30,000 desaparecidos and initiated an era of economic crisis in the country. Clarin used to be till this government some kind of massive middle class oriented, represented the huge argentine middle class, and used to have opinions from centre left to centre right. It was very diverse, it was "desarrollista", it was and still is the massive newspaper this country have. But since 2007 it is clearly anti government, explicit, with very biased notes, it took the La Nacion place had for decades, only La Nacion was more elitist.

Today both represent the right, they are conservatives anti government, while you have Pagina 12 which used to be totally left wing, but now is totally cooptated by the government, which is centre left.

 

[PhilipDT]

I read La Nacion. I find to be fairly well produced and have lots of good content. I don't like the format of clarin and Pagina 12 is just an extension of the government.

 

[germano]

If you are interested in politics and want to dig a little deeper then I can recommend the Argentinian edition of El Monde Diplomatique (monthly): http://www.eldiplo.org/

 

[EdRooney]

Personally I'd also recommend Ámbito Financiero (http://www.ambito.com/). Sort of a poor man's version of the Wall Street Journal without the Rupert Murdoch factor. It has the same pro-financial market slant. I say this not because I agree with their perspective, but IMHO the financial news sources are more likely to print actual facts because their audience needs more accurate data.

The best thing about this comparison of yours is that it should give you a great opportunity to re-evaluate the media biases of the US sources you mentioned. Since you only seem to stick to large corporate sponsored media in your post, you should find pretty direct parallels in Argentina, but only on a smaller scale. I.e., there are plenty of news outlets representing big business and financial interests and their respective politicians, but it's not as easy to find independent media here such as Democracy Now or journalists like Greenwald, Scahill et al.

In that sense i'd say very broadly:

Ámbito=WSJ (mouthpiece for the financial sector)
Página 12=MSNBC (mouthpiece for the party in power)
Clarín=Fox (mouthpiece for the opposition)
La Nación=WaPo (hard right with a veneer of seriousness)
Canal 7=NPR (govt stenographers)

Obviously these are imprecise comparisons, but at least give some indicators.

Have fun wading through the spin!

 

[ARbound]

Serious journalism is lacking here in Argentina in my opinion. Like others have said it's very polarized, but if possible, more
so than American Journalism. At least MSNBC and NPR call out bs when they see it, here you'll never get that from K/12
(Pagina/12). Canal 7 has some pretty videos sometimes but it's not journalism, it's like powerpoint summing stuff up.

Anyways, here's my take for you, similar to others:

[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Newspapers[/background]
[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]- Serious newspaper: La Nación. I'm a lefty and they're very right wing but at least they don't always talk out their ass.[/background]
[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]- Large sensational newspaper: Pagina/12 (Kristina's Press) and Clarín, I won't touch it because it basically was[/background]
Völkischer Beobachter during the Dirty War, and now is pro any right wing opposition.

[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]TV[/background]

All TV here is too polarized for me. I'll watch TN sometimes, but generally avoid it.

[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Radio[/background]

I wish I could listen fast enough, but everyone on the radio talks too damn fast.

[background=rgb(252, 252, 252)]Online[/background]

If it's in print/on TV it's online.

For English news Argentina has a very weak online/print presence. There's the Buenos Aires Herald, a generally unexciting, terribly formatted,
poor spelling, etc. paper that's updated at least daily. Mercopress covers the Mercosur area and the Falkland Islands, it's slightly better than
BAHerald thankfully, but very bland. There's The Argentine Independent. I don't read it because it's only once a week.

I've been thinking of starting an online English site and getting expats/people who actually speak English to write/cover current events and
news in a way different from Mercopress and Buenos Aires Herald. They don't get behind the stories, and so much information about Arge
in English online is seriously outdated. I was going to ask the BA Expats group if anyone was interested in working on this with me, would
be nice to have more options than what's currently out there for those who don't speak Spanish that well, and that want background on
say what Paso Primaries are all about, a history of the frustration over the pulp mill between Argentina and Uruguay, why militarist factions
exist in the K/FpV movement, etc.

But right now it's just a dream...

 

[BANiels]

Thank you all for your responses! I have been following Clarin and Nacion via the web! I realize that any form of media will be polarized. Its media But do you have like a standaard eight'o'clock news on the television also?

 

[BANiels]

and by this question, i mean what channel's 8 o clock news is commonly watched? and are there any good shows that portray important news with some discussion or something?