BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s President Javier Milei restored journalists’ access to his government headquarters Monday, more than a week after the decision to block credentialed reporters from the building — accompanied by a volley of online insults — triggered backlash from lawmakers and press freedom advocates.
Most journalists said they could enter the Casa Rosada — or the Pink House, Argentina’s equivalent of the White House — for the first time since April 23. But authorities denied entry to two credentialed TV channels without explanation and introduced new restrictions on reporters’ physical movement within the Casa Rosada, shuttering corridors and installing frosted glass on windows.
Last month’s closure of the press room used for decades by reporters with credentials to cover the president added to a list of attacks and reprisals against news organizations by Milei, whose hostility toward the press mirrors the aggressive approach of his ally and powerful backer, U.S. President Donald Trump.
Journalists and their advocates rebuked the move as an attack on press freedom in Argentina. Condemnation poured in from business chambers, the Catholic Church and politicians across the spectrum.
Milei’s government defends itself
Milei’s Cabinet chief Manuel Adorni fired back at critics in a rare news conference on Monday in which he said he aimed “not to welcome anyone, but to restore the (press) room’s operations.”
“We are fully in favor of press freedom … but we will not in any way allow acts endangering national security to be committed behind its back,” he told reporters.
Authorities justified the restrictions for the roughly 60 members of the Casa Rosada press corps as a necessary security measure after they accused a local TV channel of espionage for using smart glasses to film parts of the headquarters without authorization.
The channel, Todo Noticias, insists it received official permission to capture the footage and that the images of corridors and meeting spaces aired in the TV segment have long been accessible to the public.
When asked why colleagues from Todo Noticias and Channel 13, another leading network, were still blocked from the Casa Rosada on Monday, Adorni said that he wasn’t aware of the issue and that, “in principle, there shouldn’t be any limitations.”
On the new restrictions, which included extensive security checks at the entrance, hastily erected barriers blocking stairwells and hallways, frosted glass obscuring views of the balcony and the insistence that journalists hand over their press passes with authorities upon leaving the building, Adorni said the government was “simply enforcing the regulations.”
“This is not censoring freedom of expression,” he said.
Journalists in Argentina face government hostility
Over the past two years, Argentina’s ranking has plummeted on a press freedom index maintained by Reporters Without Borders, the group reported last week. It fell from 66 to 98 — among the biggest drops of any country in South America.
In a report released last week, the group said it had recorded a “rise in government hostility toward and pressure on the press” from Trump’s most vocal Latin American supporters, Argentina’s Milei and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.
“Insults, defamation, and threats from Javier Milei’s administration toward journalists and media critical of his government have become commonplace since he took office,” it added.
At odds with the press to a degree unseen since the 1983 restoration of Argentine democracy, Milei has escalated his media-bashing in recent weeks as his flagship campaigns against corruption and inflation falter.
Nearly every day, he posts the slogan “We don’t hate journalists enough” on X.
Late Monday, he took to social media to castigate those who “accuse us of censorship and violations of freedom of speech.”
In an ideal free market, the libertarian leader wrote, “society itself would take care of cleaning the system by bankrupting media outlets that constantly publish falsehoods.”
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america