Argentina fell 21 places in the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index this year. The steep fall came as a response to “insults, defamation, and threats” hurled from President Javier Milei’s administration toward journalists and media outlets “critical of his regime.”

The country is now  87th on a list of 180, between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Malaysia, and its situation is considered “problematic.”

“Javier Milei, the far-right candidate elected president in 2023, is encouraging hostility towards journalists and delivering attacks aimed at discrediting the media and journalists critical of his policies – attacks that are widely echoed by his supporters,” the report said.

Argentina fell 26 places in the index in 2024 following Milei’s election.

The report placed Argentina as one of the countries where news outlets have shut down due to “economic hardship”, a situation that also happened in the United States and Tunisia. 

The analysis pointed out that the vast majority of countries in the Americas have seen freedom of the press fall on account of the decline of their economic indicators, including the United States. 

“Donald Trump’s second term as president has brought a troubling deterioration in press freedom,” the report said. It report added that Nicaragua sits in the last place  as the Ortega-Murillo regime has “dismantled the independent media.”

In addition to his direct attacks on journalists, Milei’s policies increased “high concentration and lack of transparency in media ownership and increasing precariousness” of the profession. One example was the “murky role” the state plays in awarding advertising, tax exemptions, and contracts.

“The media is subject to pressure from both the government and businesses, particularly through private and public advertising,” the report stated. It also added that Milei has  “dismantled public media,”  calling the closure of pubic news agency Télam  a “heavy blow to the right to information.”

Reporters Without Borders also said that “President Javier Milei has made it clear that he intends to close or privatize state-owned media and no longer fund community media, which would impoverish the news and information ecosystem.”

However, the organization’s research also found that no journalist has been killed since the murder of photojournalist José Luis Cabezas in 1997 and that there are no detentions, “apart from a few sporadic arrests during incidents, which are quickly lifted.” However, last March, a riot police agent shot reporter Pablo Grillo in the head with a tear gas canister during a protest near Congress in Buenos Aires. Grillo, a freelance photographer who was covering a pensioners’ demonstration against Javier Milei’s austerity plan, suffered severe head trauma and was in critical condition for weeks.

The latest cases

Milei’s attacks have not only singled out individual journalists but have also portrayed the profession more broadly as corrupt. “I think people don’t hate these hitmen with press credentials enough. If they knew them better, they’d hate them even more than politicians,” he wrote in a post on X last week.

Two days later, journalist and El Destape outlet director  Roberto Navarro was attacked at a hotel in Buenos Aires by men who allegedly shouted comments similar to President Javier Milei’s discourse. Navarro had to be taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries and was discharged a couple of days later.

Last week, presidential advisor Santiago Caputo made an intimidating gesture toward a photojournalist from the Tiempo Argentino outlet. 

Caputo was being photographed as he entered the venue where the debate for Buenos Aires City legislature candidates was taking place. At one point, he placed a hand in front of Antonio Becerra Pergoraro’s camera and began nodding “no” with his head. As the photojournalist continued snapping his image, Caputo took out his cell phone and took a picture of the man’s credentials. Freedom of press watchdogs, media organizations, and journalist unions condemned the gesture.

The president has yet to hold a single press conference since his inauguration in late 2023.