The Press: Voice of Freedom

In Latin America, where government violations of the press are the order of the day. the Inter-American Press Association is the only organized voice of press freedom. Last week, at its tenth annual meeting in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the outspoken representatives of 390 newspapers and magazines from the Western Hemisphere demonstrated why I.A.P.A. has become the most effective force for an unfettered press in Latin America.

Up before the convention stepped Chicago Daily News Publisher John Knight, who denounced the press in President Juan Peron's Argentina for "kowtowing before the dictator for the dubious privilege of earning a living." One Argentine editor who refused to kowtow could not attend the I.A.P.A. meeting at all; he had to send in his report. David Michel Torino, owner of Argentina's well-named El Intransigente, was not allowed out of the country by Peron's police. Three years ago he was thrown in jail for "disrespect" of the government. Last September, after his release, an I.A.P.A. representative tried to present Torino with the organization's "Hero of Freedom of the Press" medal. But Argentine police hustled the I.A.P.A. member aboard an outgoing plane as soon as he landed in Argentina.

Argentina is not the only country in which the press is being hamstrung. The Chicago Tribune's Latin American Correspondent Jules Dubois. an old foe of censorship and suppression, delivered a report singling out Argentina as the worst offender, but also recommending that protests be made to Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Peru, Nicaragua and Venezuela for various forms of interference.

To the most notable fighters for press independence went the Mergenthaler Awards, Latin America's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes. Among the winners: Editor Jorge Mantilla of Ecuador's El Comercio, who won the $500 prize for "work on behalf of press freedom" after he refused to print a government communique in his paper and was closed down by the police; and Carlos Lacerda, fiery publisher of Brazil's Tribuna da Imprensa (TiME. Aug. 16), for his crusading editorials against government corruption. Said Lacerda: "There is one lesson we learn from events in Brazil. [It is the] growing responsibility of the press in forming a public opinion capable of fighting."