Clarin (newspaper)
Clarín is an Argentine newspaper based in the city of Buenos Aires. It was founded on August 28, 1945, by Roberto Noble. The newspaper is part of Grupo Clarín and its director is currently Héctor Magnetto.
In May 2019, Clarín set the audience record for digital media in Argentina with 19,564,000 unique visitors, according to Comscore records.
History
Origins
Clarín was founded by Roberto Noble, a politician and businessman who years before was Minister of Government of the province of Buenos Aires (1936-1939) during the governorship of Manuel Fresco. In the beginnings of Clarín, the newspaper that Manuel Fresco founded in 1942, Cabildo, of nationalist ideology and financed by the German embassy, played an important role. Cabildo provided Clarín for a time with a large quantity of paper necessary for printing. Fresco's relationship with Noble at the beginning of the newspaper was also reflected in the newspaper's slogan, "A wake-up call for the Argentine solution to Argentine problems", which refers to the slogan used by Fresco in a campaign: "An Argentine government of Argentine solutions for Argentine problems".
With the role of Cabildo and the financial support of a group of businessmen, Noble was able to finance the early days of Clarín.
A couple of reports from the US embassy inquired about the role the newspaper would play in local politics. A report dated August 3, 1945, prior to the newspaper's release, indicated that the newspaper would support the National Democratic Party and its conservative candidates. A second report, dated November 14, 1945, already after the events that occurred on October 17, estimated that Clarín would become a propaganda newspaper for Colonel Perón, with many "pro-Nazis" on its staff..
The first issue of Clarín was published on August 28, 1945. The morning paper had the particularity of being one of the first newspapers in the world to include a more compact design (tabloid) instead of the typical "sheet" design used by newspapers at the time.[citation needed]
Early Years
Since the laudatory words expressed before the mobilizations of 1945 against the military government, and then already in the campaign for the presidential elections of 1946, the newspaper openly supported the claims that converged in the Democratic Union, ignoring the Perón's campaign and avoiding mentioning him on the cover. Even so, Clarín was the first anti-Peronist newspaper to recognize Perón's victory in the elections.
The newspaper knew how to view the advent of the Peronist government with some suspicion, against which it showed more appeasement after the intervention of La Prensa in 1951. Among the critical position of La Prensa Press and the permanent praise of the official newspapers, Clarín gradually established itself as an "independent" media. The information hidden by the official press could only be taken from Uruguayan radio stations and -albeit lukewarmly- in some lost texts from La Nación or Clarín. The most distinctive feature of this newspaper It was his adherence to the development ideology and its representatives, a position he maintained until the 1980s.
The newspaper was in favor of the coup d'état, the self-proclaimed Liberating Revolution, that overthrew Juan Domingo Perón in 1955. Although Peronism had been outlawed, on its September 22 cover it published "The country is totally peaceful" and "El Gral. Lonardi Will Swear Tomorrow As President of the Republic", also published the biography of the dictator.
The following day on its cover it wrote: «Appointment of honor with freedom. Also for the Republic the night has been left behind». "In the midst of the exultant jubilation of the citizens, the new president assumes". "Enthusiast and standard bearer, Buenos Aires will receive General Lonardi".
Military dictatorship of 1976
In 1973, Clarín created its mythical back cover that would be occupied almost entirely by Argentine cartoonists -with the sole exception in the early years of Mutt and Jeff. There would appear anthological strips such as: Clemente de Caloi; El Loco Chávez by Carlos Trillo and Horacio Altuna; Diogenes and the Linyera of Tabaré, Jorge Guinzburg, Carlos Abrevaya and Héctor García Blanco; The Magician Fafá by Alberto Bróccoli; The Return of Osiris by Alberto Contreras; Theodore & Cía de Viuti; From the daily chronicle by Felipe Miguel Ángel Dobal; El Negro Blanco by Trillo and Ernesto García Seijas; Hunted by Trillo and O'Kif; El Nene Montanaro and Es lo que hay (reality) by Altuna; I, Matías by Fernando Sendra; La Nelly by Sergio Langer, plus the humor of Roberto Fontanarrosa, Crist, Aldo Rivero, Ian.
In September 1973, he was the victim of bomb attacks at his headquarters in Buenos Aires by the far-right Peronist and in Rosario by ERP and Montoneros. Also, the kidnapping of one of his executives led to the forced publication of the ERP requests, the same type of event happened days before with the newspaper Crónica .
The newspaper Clarín was also important during the conflict. Being one of the largest newspapers in Argentina, it had a great impact during the war. This means of information focused specifically on the broadcast of Malvinas news, for which it used four axes: The news or declarations of opposition political sectors; special reports organized by the same newspaper, the editorial notes; and the notes where the government was the issuer.
Since 1974, the newspaper was characterized by an austere treatment of issues related to the national reality and by giving priority to economic topics. Half of the editorials published between March 1 and 23, 1976 referred to the economy, and the rest dealt alternately with the judiciary, the performance of trade unionism, the situation of journalism in the face of violence, and the role of the opposition The editorials of that time followed the line of attributing to the failure of the economic system the problems that were registered in other spheres. In the editorials immediately before and after March 24, it is noted that the newspaper's discourse considers the end of the government of Isabel Perón as a result of the serious crisis affecting the country. The coup d'état was not presented as the rupture of the constitutional order but as the inevitable result of the wear and tear of the Peronist government. However, unlike the editorial discourse of other newspapers, they did not adopt a systematic communication strategy with the purpose of undermining the foundations of the constitutional government, but instead brandished a criticism of the performance of the executive branch that could be called measured. On March 25, 1976 (the day after the coup) the newspaper read:
A new stage is now open, with renewed hope. And, while the picture now offered by the country is critical, it should not be forgotten that all nations have their difficult hours and that the temple of their children is able to lift them from their ruinous fall.
On state terrorism, said an article published in the newspaper in 1982:
No responsible person shall deny that such action was necessary, since the guerrillas had placed the country in the process of disintegration. Something unbearable.
2000s and 2010s
Jorge Fontevecchia, director of Editorial Perfil, describes Clarín's editorial line as "marketing, which seeks to satisfy the largest number of consumers." In turn, he assures: "Clarín is priceless when it comes to going against public opinion, which does not mean that until that happens it tries to get the most out of gullible governments that believe they can dominate it."
Noticias magazine (of Editorial Perfil, owner of the competitor newspaper Perfil) accused Clarín of holding a pact with the national government. He claimed that former President Néstor Kirchner used the newspaper Clarín as his own news agency.
However, during the 2008 agricultural strike, the Grupo Clarín media took a critical stance of the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. From anonymity, posters were placed in Buenos Aires with the legends "Clarín lies" and "TN: All Negative. The latter, in reference to the news channel Todo Noticias (TN), which belongs to the same multimedia as Clarín.
In 2010, from the declared pro-government program 6, 7, 8 and from the state channel 7, they echoed the complaints from earlier times that said that both the newspaper and Clarín's multimedia, obtained their status as a monopoly corporation through two actions: having openly supported the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), and having obtained part of the control of Papel Prensa S.A. in collusion with the torture and illegal expropriation carried out on its legitimate owners, the family of David Graiver, who was a businessman and banker whose family was arrested and tortured by the Military Dictatorship of 1976 for David's alleged relationship with Montoneros.
In September 2010, then-president Cristina Kirchner exposed the report prepared by Guillermo Moreno (Secretary of Internal Commerce) about the way in which private shareholders Clarín, La Nación and La Razón obtained control of Papel Prensa S.A. and presented it to the court. The private shareholders of Papel Prensa denied the above statements and it was also denied by Isidoro Graiver, David's brother, who declared before the Court that the family did not receive pressure from the newspapers that acquired Papel Prensa to sell the company. The newspaper Tiempo Argentino released an interview conducted previously where he himself maintains the existence of pressures and threats.
According to the IVC, the newspaper recorded a 19% drop in sales between March 2008 and March 2010. Sales of the morning paper collapsed 32.5 percent between 2003 and 2012, which is equivalent to a loss of 130,000 copies.
Features of the journal
- Clarín gives priority to local themes: importance to sections such as sports and shows. These sections have a design different from the rest of the publication.
- He came to the sales kiosks of the Federal Capital before the others. At the time it was founded, in Capital Federal and the province of Buenos Aires cost only 5 cents (half of the rest of the newspapers).[chuckles]required]
- His design is tabloid. He was then adopted by several London newspapers not to lose young readers.[chuckles]required]
- Its motto is "A touch of attention for the Argentine solution of Argentine problems", and its current advertising slogan: "The great Argentine newspaper".
- It is part of the PAL (Latin American Associate Journalists), to which other important publishing houses in Latin America belong.
Online version
In 1996, Clarín launched the digital version of its newspaper, Clarín.com. It is the most visited news web portal in the country, followed by the online portal of the newspaper La Nación and by Infobae.
Live Magazine
Clarín Zonal Newspaper
Roll
Currently, Clarín is the newspaper with the largest circulation in Argentina, and is also one of the most widely distributed in the Spanish-speaking world, with a circulation that in March 2018 was 206,837 daily copies (average from Monday to Sunday, including an average of 38,778 copies in digital editions).
Disputes
Freedom of association
On November 4, 2000, 117 workers from the Clarín newsroom were fired for their union activity, among them were the 10 members of the Internal Press Union Commission, chaired by journalist Ana Ale, as well as all the members of the Electoral Board who participated in the union elective process. Since that date, there has been no union representation of its workers in the writing of the largest newspaper in Argentina.
In 2004 Artes Gráficas Rioplatenses fired 119 workers. In 2010, two court rulings (first and second instance) ordered his reinstatement, but the company did not comply. Delegates of the workers carried out a hunger strike since the last weeks of 2010. They also said that they were victims of intimidation by the company through hired patovicas.
According to the Argentine morning papers Página/12, Tiempo Argentino and La Mañana de Córdoba, Grupo Clarín does not allow its employees freedom of association, a behavior that would extend to the entire Grupo Clarín.
On March 27, 2011, fired employees and union representatives held a protest at Artes Gráficas Rioplatenses. According to Grupo Clarín, this prevented the publication of the newspaper. In contrast, other journalistic reports say that the plant did not have all the exits blocked. The company and different journalists and politicians criticized the protest, in the name of freedom of expression. On the other hand, many celebrities such as Adrián Paenza, Roberto Cossa, Horacio González, Ignacio Copani; journalists such as Víctor Hugo Morales, Pablo Llonto, Roberto Caballero, Eduardo Anguita and politicians such as Agustín Rossi, Diana Maffia, Dante Gullo, Juan Cabandié, signed a request for the company to respect the right of workers to unionize.
The blockade of one of the outlets of the newspaper was questioned by leaders of practically the entire opposition arch and by journalists from various media, while harsh complaints were received from the entity that brings together the owners of newspapers ADEPA (Association of Journalistic Entities) and the SIP (Inter-American Press Association) and complaints from readers on social networks. The measure also had repercussions in numerous international media.
The Senate, for its part, unanimously approved a resolution expressing its "rejection and repudiation" to the lock method.
Conflict over the brand
Based on a request in which Grupo Clarín alleged that the portal “¿Qué te pasa, Clarín?” exploited the brand, the Civil and Commercial Court No. 3 set a fine of 500 pesos a day if the site – which analyzed and criticized the morning newspaper – remained online; Given this, one of its authors —Claudio Díaz— resigned from his job and the others decided not to continue using the domain.
Escondido Lake Scandal
In October 2022, the company financed an alleged meeting between judges, prosecutors and businessmen on the private property of Joe Lewis in Lago Escondido.