In Chile, media functions as an industry, depending on advertising for its subsistence, which is also true for the public television channel. In 2019, some newspapers and online media started trying subscription models, but at the time of writing this report, in general, advertising was still the main economic support and income for media.
Between 2019 and 2020, the amount of monthly advertising fell significantly, due to both the economic crisis caused by the 2019 social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic. When comparing advertisers’ investment in media between May 2019 and May 2020, there was a variation of -67.5 per cent in print and online press, -42.3 per cent in radio, -23.2 per cent in paid television, and -21.0 per cent in open access television (Megatime, 2020). This has dealt a critical blow to the media, which lost advertisers, including one case that became public, because there was an ideological difference between the company that provided advertising revenue and the coverage given to the protests. Consequentially, this economically precarious scenario has resulted in the firing of multiple journalists and editors within the industry, which was already dealing with a previous crisis of redundancies.
Before the crisis intensified, data from previous research stated that 26.3 per cent of Chilean journalists reported being asked to cover a story related to advertisers, and the two biggest problems they see for the practice of journalism are the greater concern about reaching audiences than quality (26.7%) and too much emphasis on economic achievement (23.1%) (Yez, 2011). In the current critical context, testimonies of the interviewees remain consistent with these numbers. Reporters were aware of the commercial reality of the industry, but in their daily work, they said they did not have any dialogue with commercial areas – and did not even know them. “I find out who the advertisers are when I read the medium”, mentioned one journalist. However, while they did not consider it to be a direct or habitual pressure for journalistic work – nor something that could be generalised for the Chilean case – some interviewees did mention exceptions. In one such case, they admitted to taking special care when giving unfavourable coverage to one of the sponsoring companies. In another, the production of “advertorials” was mentioned as a business strategy adopted in order to reduce effects of the current economic crisis. Therefore, while commercial aspects may not exert a direct pressure on journalists, the medium’s economic subsistence emerged as an unavoidable concern. Directors and editors-in-chief are more directly exposed to all types of pressures (as presented in Indicator F5 – Company rules against internal influence on newsroom/editorial staff). While they recognised such pressures did not always exist, it varied from case to case, since it largely depended on the internal rules of the medium, as well as the temper and personality of the head of the specific newsroom in question. While one of the editors-in-chief stated they preferred to lose an advertiser before losing their autonomy, and a director commented that considering sponsors inside the newsroom would be a “mortal sin”, others said that due to their economic dependency on advertising, they have had to cede to and privilege commercial aspects, for instance, when a topic might potentially damage a sponsoring company. At the same time, they concurred on the relevance of protecting certain stories – giving the medium more credibility – from any kind of pressure.
