Journalism in Asunción Under the Allies and the Colorados, 1869-1904

Abstract

Some of the Latin American republics have produced newspapers that rank with the best in the world. In Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia there have been great editors who presided over especially noteworthy journals. Political stability certainly contributed to the development of such papers as La Prensa and La Nación in Buenos Aires and of El Mercurio in Chile. While political stability is a prerequisite for continuous good journalism, freedom of expression, guaranteed by government and jealously guarded by legal institutions, is even more important. Equally important is self-discipline by the press, nowhere more clearly shown than in Chile where the important law of 1872 brought under control abuses that had plagued Chilean journalism for three decades. A free press is incompatible with dictatorial or authoritarian government, a truism amply demonstrated by the Paraguayan experience.