illegal to say anything bad about him. He shut down existing media when he took over. He said it was so that more media outlets could open, but it didn't work that way. He was accused of only giving permits to people friendly to his administration. The whole idea that Ecuador backed Assange because they were a big free speech advocate doesn't hold up when you look at Correa's policies.

Under Franco, the press was allowed to say anything "no atente al estado," or, basically, "not contrary to the state." Under a fascist regime, of course, the state is the government in power, so it's basically Nixon's wet dream with Roger Ailes: the government won't decide what you can say, but they WILL decide what you CAN'T say.

going by how the NYT is describing it. The part about religion seems troubling though, and might prevent criticism of religious ideas.

Apparently unknown in the US (and to English speakers on Wikipedia) the right of reply is a very old concept and a legal right in Germany since 1874. A big step forward for Ecuador to grant this right to everyone who is targetted by false information in the media.

The new Consejo de Regulación y Desarrollo de la Comunicación, four of whose five members are elected by members of the institutions they represent (only one is appointed by the President) can now impose sanctions if private media try and carry out their campaigns of lies. They can demand an apology if the information promulgated is shown to be incorrect, and impose fines for recidivists (rather moderate ones, I think: three to thirty percent monthly income doesn't appear to threaten a newspapers or TV station's existence).

LEY ORGANICA DE COMUNICACION

Criticism in Ecuador of the new law seems to focus mostly on the provision that concessions for radio frequencies must from now on be shared equally among public, private and community media ("equitativamente en tres partes, reservando el 33% de estas frecuencias para la operación de medios públicos, el 33% para la operación de medios privados, y 34% para la operación de medios comunitarios&quot .

The share of the private media is currently 71% (television) and 85.5% (radio frequencies). So, of course their representatives complain.

They don't have time or room for the truth.

That's why the U.S. public is wildly uninformed on Latin America.

Thank you, reorg. Rec.

Do you think Correa would take legal action against Assange if Julian resided in the country and exposed secret Ecuadorean government documents on the net?

of the documents they publish and never did anybody claim that any of the leaked information they published was false.

So, neither the President nor the new Regulatory Council would be able to use the new media law against Wikileaks.

In addition, the new media law states that publishers have the right to withhold the names of their sources.

The one that the Reagan regime got rid of--which was the beginning of the end of U.S. journalism and, indeed, of U.S. democracy, which cannot function in a rightwing/pro-"organized money," propaganda environment.

True, it seems long ago now, but we once had strict regulation of commercial entities using the public airwaves, precisely to prevent private owners and management from imposing their self-interested views with unanswered propaganda. It thus became the NORM, even in print media (which was influenced by the "Fairness Doctrine&quot to separate the commercial and news/opinion departments of broadcast media and seek fairness and objectivity especially in news print media but also in opinion (seeking out and publishing alternative views).

We need to restore the "Fairness Doctrine" here, along with bars against private media monopolies. The new leftist democracies in Latin America are leading the way on this.