By ISABEL DEBRE

 

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, 07 May. - (ANA) — The president blocked accredited reporters from entering the government’s headquarters. He took to social media, in all caps, to insult the country’s news media as “filthy scum that claims to be journalists.” He posted an AI-generated image that showed a local TV journalist in an orange prison jumpsuit.

 

The president in question was not the one you might think. It was Argentina’s radical libertarian Javier Milei.

 

Milei’s decision last week to expel the entire press corp from the Casa Rosada — or the Pink House, the Argentine equivalent of the White House — marked the latest escalation in a wide-ranging anti-media campaign that has become a hallmark of his tenure, much as it has for his ideological ally and fellow adversary of the media, U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

“It’s the culmination of the government’s contempt for journalism and its value in a democracy,” said Fernando Stanich, president of the Argentine Journalism Forum, a professional group.

 

In a nation that has long prided itself on a free and vibrant news media, rights watchdogs and lawmakers from across the political spectrum denounced the move as an attack on the press without precedent since the end of Argentina’s military dictatorship in 1983.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/07 May 2026 - - -