The Arias method to keep La Prensa on top

by Eric Jackson

During the acrimonious campaign by which former Panamanian ambassador to the United States and foreign minister Ricardo Alberto Arias gained control of La Prensa, Arias complained to stockholders that the newspaper's profits were slipping, and vowed to reverse the trend. His supporters complained about high salaries, foreign journalists and foreign content.

Several months into Arias's reign, we see some results. Editor and investigative reporter Gustavo Gorriti is back in Peru. Business page editor Miren Gutiérrez, a Spaniard, is also gone, and as this article was written several weeks after her departure, the paper's staff box indicates that her position remains vacant. A number of the old reporters are gone, and some less experienced and probably lower paid reporters have come onto the staff. The business section now has hardly any news from Panama (now we see page after page of wire stories, mostly about US business), but there is a new "reseña empresarial," wherein business owners get their pictures in the paper, standing next to similarly suited "dignitaries." The paper now runs unsigned political smears, like a recent story in which a Panamanian man who plays dominoes in a downtown plaza was shown standing behind labor leader Genaro López and misrepresented as a Cuban spymaster who was allegedly behind the riots over bus fare increases. All in all, La Prensa now looks a lot like a capitalist version of Granma, Fidel Castro's paper.

On June 15, however, page 1B of La Prensa featured several photos that were different from the new style, to illustrate a story about hazards left behind at former US military sites. Three of the four photos were by the author of this article, Panama News editor Eric Jackson. They were used without payment or permission, or even the courtesy of asking.

We have also been recently informed by veteran Panamanian photographer Carlos Guardia that he is contemplating a lawsuit against La Prensa for what he claims is the unauthorized and uncompensated use of his work.

La Prensa's new practices are in keeping with the practices of the administration that Ricardo Alberto Arias used to serve. While Arias was with the Foreign Ministry during the Pérez Balladares administration, over this journalist's objections a frequent pirate of works by this and several other Panamanian newspapers, publisher Roberto Morgan of the bilingual New York monthly Presencia Panameña e Hispana, received an award from the ministry for his alleged contributions to Panama.

Thus La Prensa's new cost-cutting style is out there for all to see: it has much in common with the way that Felicidad de Noriega gets buttons.