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After the closure announcement, Télam workers were furloughed and the service is down - Infobae
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Tras el anuncio de cierre, los trabajadores de Télam fueron licenciados y el servicio está caído
El edificio principal de la agencia nacional de noticias amaneció vallado y los empleados no pueden ingresar. Este mediodía habrá una protesta
www.infobae.com
March 05, 2024
The main building of the national news agency was fenced off and employees were not allowed to enter. This afternoon there will be a protest
The entrance to the Télam agency, fenced and with police (Photo credit: Adrián Escándar)
Diego Chaher , controller of Public Media, furloughed the workers of the National News Agency Télam for a period of seven days starting today. At the same time, the website and the usual wired information service are down . Neither the photo service nor the journalistic archive are available.
The Agency's headquarters, located on Bolívar Street, woke up fenced and surrounded by police. The workers who usually carry out tasks in that building were not able to enter.
Video: this is how the Télam news agency woke up
President Javier Milei had announced on Friday at the opening of ordinary sessions of Congress the closure of the Télam Agency. “We are going to close it because it has been used in recent decades as a Kirchnerist propaganda agency.” The announcement generated a reaction from the agency's workers, who began a fight plan and this afternoon they will carry out a symbolic hug to the building.
“It is hereby notified that all Télam SE personnel are exempt from paying their labor debt for a period of seven (7) days with pay starting at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 3, current," says the statement released this Monday by the controller Chaher.
Télam was created 78 years ago and is the largest news agency in the country, with 700 employees and a production of around 500 articles per day.
It may interest you:Javier Milei announced that he will close the Télam news agency
In this context, the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the Argentine Republic (ACERA) issued a statement in defense of the company, pointing out "the need for the country to have a state - and non-governmental - news agency that guarantees citizens access to plural information. It is necessary to find a more appropriate path for Télam, protecting and enhancing its key role in a democracy.”
The statement issued by the controller of the Télam agency
Following the President's words on Friday, the news agency issued a cable in which they highlighted the daily work carried out by its more than 700 employees, highlighted that it was “the only one in the country with a network of correspondents in all Argentine provinces” and made a review of its history. “It was created 78 years ago with the purpose of disseminating information to the entire country on a federal and pluralistic basis,” they stressed.
Below is the complete Télam cable published last Friday:
President Javier Milei said today in the Legislative Assembly that his administration “is going to close” the public news agency Télam, created 78 years ago with the purpose of disseminating information to the entire country on a federal and pluralistic basis.
As the only argument to announce its closure, Milei considered that the agency "has been used in recent decades as a Kirchnerist propaganda agency", the same justification used by the former Secretary of Public Media, Hernán Lombardi, when in 2018 357 layoffs were ordered in the agency, many of them later reversed by justice.
The agency turned 78 years old on April 14, when it received greetings and congratulations for its performance over more than three quarters of a century from politicians of different ideologies, personalities from the business, union, academic and human rights, among other points, including a special and personalized message from Pope Francis.
Télam is the only agency in the country with a network of correspondents in all Argentine provinces and has multiple cooperation agreements with international agencies that make it possible to produce and provide first-hand information on events that occur in the world for various media, companies, organizations. and institutions.
It has more than 700 employees and has faced attempts at liquidation, closure, layoffs or downsizing in the past during the governments of Carlos Menem, Fernando de la Rúa and Mauricio Macri.
It broadcasts more than 500 cables per day with information from all over the country, at least 200 photographs and has video, radio, a news portal and social networks departments.
In its beginnings, 78 years ago, the Télam agency was created as a mixed company, formed by private and state capital, with the aim of breaking the existing duopoly in information matters of the two American agencies that monopolized the market: United Press International and Associated Press.
Its first director was the journalist Jerónimo Jutronich and on October 12, 1945 it began to broadcast information. Three years later it was able to count on a national coverage network, after signing the first contracts with journalists from the interior of the country, who began to send notes to the editorial office by telegram, telephone or teletype, systems now totally surpassed by technological advances.
“Télam does not close. We are going to defend it, not only the workers of the Agency but also the entire Argentine people, as with all state companies, the public assets and the sovereignty of our country,” the general secretary of the Argentine Federation of Workers published in of Press, Carla Gaudensi, barely finished Milei's speech in Congress.
Martín Becerra, academic and media expert, also warned that “Télam and Radio Nacional are the only media outlets with correspondents in all the provinces of the country.”
From the left, representative Myriam Bregman considered the announcement as “one more attack on workers.”
The content generated daily by the Télam news agency is vital for the flow of information, since it serves as a basis for the information published by the major media and also allows first-hand information to reach media outlets in every corner of the country.
Its federal and pluralistic character allows giving voice to sectors often ignored by the major media.
