Four months after the government suddenly shuttered Argentina’s public news agency, Télam, it has formally turned the organization into an advertising agency.

President Javier Milei announced that he would close Télam during his speech for the opening of congressional sessions in March. Just three days later, its website was taken down, its offices fenced off and its 700 employees sent on paid leave, in a move that shocked many by its speed and aggression. Milei had initially said he would privatize the organization.

Half of the workers have taken voluntary redundancy — but others have been camping out in front of their two former offices in Buenos Aires ever since.

The changeover was made official with a decree published in Argentina’s gazette Monday. Last week, the government had announced that Télam, along with other public media, would be placed under the purview of presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni. However, the decree states that Chief of Staff Guillermo Francos will control the new agency, which will be called Agencia de Publicidad del Estado (State Advertising Agency). 

All of Télam’s resources — including staff, their news services, and other assets — will be transferred to other public media or third parties, the decree adds.

A source at the now-defunct agency said that some of the remaining workers would now be transferred to the public media company Radio Televisión Argentina, adding that a new news agency would be created there. However, the specifics of this plan have yet to be communicated to workers. The rest will work for the new advertising agency.

According to the decree, the new agency will focus on state advertising and publicity. Until now, Télam had also functioned as a hub that distributed payments for state advertising in private media, meaning that part of its operations were already dedicated to these tasks.

This decision aims to “optimize” Télam’s operations and “reflect the current business strategy, corporate identity and market position” of the company, Monday’s decree says. As an advertising agency, “it will concentrate the company’s resources in these areas, which offer better opportunities for long-term growth and profitability.”

The government took over Télam’s directorate in February, and put Diego Chaher as its new head. Another decree published on Monday in the Official Bulletin shows Chaher was promoted to State Companies Secretariat.

During an assembly on Saturday, workers from the SIPREBA journalists’ union demanded that the employees who had stayed on be allowed to return to their jobs. They also demanded that the fence and police guard be removed from the offices, calling it an “inexplicable act of repression” and “an attack on freedom of speech.”

Milei’s closure of Télam was singled out by Reporters Without Borders in their 2024 World Press Freedom Index. “2023 saw decisive elections, especially in Latin America, that were won by self-proclaimed predators of press freedom and media plurality, like Javier Milei in Argentina, who shut down the country’s biggest news agency in a worrisome symbolic act,” the organization wrote in May.

Argentina dropped 26 places to 66th in this year’s global ranking.