Governor Triggers Debate Over Freedom of the Press

The governor calls it good business sense. Critics say he has a vendetta. His decision to yank government ads from Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper has created a debate on press freedom here.

It began in April, when Gov. Pedro Rossello’s administration pulled millions of dollars in government advertising from El Nuevo Dia.

Rossello denied he acted in revenge after El Nuevo Dia ran stories highlighting corruption in government. The issue, he said, was “cost and effectiveness.” It cost the paper $500,000 a month.

But the move drew angry letters from international press organizations. The American Society of Newspaper Editors called it an attempt “to intimidate the press through an economic boycott.”

El Nuevo Dia’s directors claim that the government has taken its campaign further by ordering a tax audit of the paper and reneging on lucrative government contracts awarded businesses owned by the publisher’s family.

The publisher of a rival newspaper called their allegations “preposterous,” saying the government dropped El Nuevo Dia after it announced that it was hiking advertising rates to $81 per inch--nearly twice the rate of its smaller competitors.

“I think [the government] decided to play hardball,” Gerardo Angulo, publisher of The San Juan Star, said Wednesday.

“This had nothing to do with money,” countered Maria Luisa Ferre, El Nuevo Dia’s co-director. “It’s a question of principles. The government has to understand that it cannot manipulate news coverage.”

With a circulation of 220,000, El Nuevo Dia is the biggest newspaper in this U.S. Caribbean commonwealth.

Ferre claims that El Nuevo Dia crossed Rossello after it began printing stories about corruption in the public telephone company. Reporters extensively covered allegations that then-company president Agustin Garcia, a former campaign fund manager for Rossello, granted contracts solely to members of Rossello’s New Progressive Party.

Garcia resigned in April, the same week Rossello announced that Puerto Rico would sell its telephone company.

Rossello supports making Puerto Rico the 51st U.S. state, and he’s a rising star in the Democratic Party. He spent a night in the White House earlier this spring--the only visiting governor to receive the honor.

El Nuevo Dia hasn’t always had such problems with the governor. It extensively covered his reelection campaign last year, and Rossello trounced his pro-commonwealth opponent with a record 1 million votes.

In fact, the founder of Rossello’s pro-statehood party--former Gov. Luis Ferre--also founded the precursor to El Nuevo Dia, called El Dia. He sold the paper to his son, Luis Antonio Ferre, who changed the name to El Nuevo Dia in 1970.

Maria Luisa Ferre says her paper has no party line.

“We are the only newspaper that creates public opinion. But we have not been unjust,” she said. “We’ve given them praise where it’s due.”