La Prensa (Panama City)

Under military dictatorship

The newspaper was founded in 1980 by I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr., who had returned to Panama in 1979 after living in exile for three years in the United States. Created to oppose the military dictatorship of Omar Torrijos, the paper published its first issue on August 4, 1981.

In 1982, Prensa editor Carlos Ernesto González was sentenced to five months' imprisonment for an article critical of President Arístides Royo, in which he accused the president of being behind an armed attack on the Prensa building by Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) supporters. The paper was the only media organization to endorse opposition candidate Arnulfo Arias over military leader Manuel Noriega's selection, Ardito Barletta, who was also backed and covertly funded by the United States, in the 1984 presidential election.

In 1986, La Prensa was still the only newspaper publishing reports critical of military leader Manuel Noriega, including protesting the murder of Hugo Spadafora. The government consequently adopted a formal resolution condemning Eisenmann as a "traitor to the nation". Eisenmann then reportedly lived in exile in the US for fear of his safety, first in Massachusetts as a Nieman Fellow of Harvard University, and then in Miami.

On July 4, 1987, PRD supporters burned down Mansion Dante, a commercial complex owned by the Eisenmann family. On July 26, security forces entered the building with an order to close La Prensa signed by Governor of Panama Alberto Velázquez; two smaller opposition papers were also closed. The paper was occupied and closed by government troops again in 1988, reopening in January 1990, shortly after the United States invasion of Panama. Eisenmann called the issue "the first La Prensa that we have ever published without threat, without being under the gun."

Post-military rule

Following democratic reforms, the paper continued to report on politics and government corruption. In the 1994 presidential election, the paper opposed Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Ernesto Pérez Balladares—the election's eventual winner—stating in editorials that he was a threat to the country's post-dictatorship democracy.

In 1996, Peruvian journalist Gustavo Gorriti joined the Prensa staff. He sparked government ire by reporting that a bank that had recently failed had been laundering money for Colombia's Cali Cartel, and that an agent of the cartel had contributed US$51,000 to President Ernesto Pérez Balladares' campaign. When his work visa expired, the Panamanian government refused to renew it, triggering a storm of criticism from international press NGOs and domestic opposition parties. Gorriti was given shelter in the Prensa offices, and the paper managed to delay his deportation through a stay by the Panamanian Supreme Court. Americas Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued statements in support of Gorriti, as did British novelist John le Carré and Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

In 1998, La Prensa and other Panamanian papers reported that the construction of a new National Assembly building had been tainted by graft, and that a representative of the US corporation HNTB had distributed US$5 million in bribes to secure the project.{{cite web |url-status=dead

Former Attorney General José Antonio Sossa filed a criminal complaint for libel against four Prensa journalists in 2000: Gorriti, business editor Miren Gutiérrez Almazor, and journalists Monica Palm and Rolando Rodriguez. The complaint cited a series of stories the paper published in 1999 reporting that a drug trafficker had donated to one of Sossa's political campaigns. In 2004, Sossa also filed a complaint against Eisenmann, who had questioned his work as a public servant.

Former vice president Ricardo Arias Calderón pressed criminal defamation charges against Prensa cartoonist Julio Briceño in 2001 for a cartoon of Arias standing besides the Grim Reaper, representing his new alliance with the PRD; Arias additionally asked for a million dollars in damages. In March of the same year, Pérez Balladares' former foreign minister, Ricardo Alberto Arias, forced out Gorriti and was elected the paper's new president by a majority of shareholders. The Committee to Protect Journalists, which had awarded Gorriti its International Press Freedom Award for his work with the paper, called the election, and the resignations and demotions of investigative staff that followed, a "boardroom coup" that left "the once feisty paper a shadow of its former self".

In 2012, La Prensa published a series of investigative reports of Transcaribe Trading Company, one of the country's largest construction firms, alleging that it had made millions off favorable contracts with the government. In response, workers from the company surrounded and blockaded the Prensa building, requiring President Ricardo Martinelli to intervene to end the standoff.

References

References

1. Tracy Wilkinson. (May 10, 1994). "The Ghosts of Panama's Past Haunt Elections, Spooking Some Observers". Los Angeles Times.
2. (July 28, 1987). "Troops Attack Rebel Colonel's Panama Home". Los Angeles Times.
3. I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr.. (June 14, 1989). "Panama Might Still Brake the New Narco-Militarism". Los Angeles Times.
4. Richard R. Cole. (1996). "Communication in Latin America: journalism, mass media, and society". [[Rowman & Littlefield]].
5. Juanita Darling. (September 13, 1997). "Visa Refusal Seen as Effort to 'Gag' Defiant Peruvian Editor". Los Angeles Times.
6. "Historia de la Prensa". La Prena.
7. (November 9, 1981). "Panama Editor Arrested For Attack on President". The New York Times.
8. David Gonzalez. (October 28, 2001). "Panama Is Putting Journalists on Trial". The New York Times.
9. Robert C. Harding. (2006). "The History of Panama". Greenwood Press.
10. William R. Long. (July 18, 1986). "He Sees Plot Aimed at Canal Control". Los Angeles Times.
11. Robert C. Harding. (2006). "The History of Panama". Greenwood Press.
12. (July 24, 1986). "Panama Editor in Miami After Death Threats". The New York Times.
13. Stephen Kinzer. (July 4, 1987). "Panama Strike Called in Fire Tied to the Regime". The New York Times.
14. Elaine Sciolino. (January 20, 1988). "U.S. Believes Plan to Ease Out Panama's Leader Is Still Alive". The New York Times.
15. (January 10, 1990). "News Summary". The New York Times.
16. David E. Pitt. (January 10, 1990). "The U.S. and Panama: The Press; Paper Noriega Crushed Is Reborn as a Watchdog". The New York Times.
17. Larry Rohter. (September 4, 1997). "Panama's Move to Oust Editor Sets Off Storm". The New York Times.
18. (November 25, 1998). "Rewarding Courage". PBS.
19. (March 27, 1999). "Another Torrijos". The Economist.
20. (August 9, 2000). "Police surround homes of three journalists charged with criminal defamation". International Freedom of Expression Exchange.
21. Transparency International. (2007). "Global Corruption Report 2007: Corruption in Judicial Systems". [[Cambridge University Press]].
22. "1998 Press Freedom Awards -Gorriti". Committee to Protect Journalists.
23. (March 26, 2002). "Attacks on the Press 2001: Panama". The Committee to Protect Journalists.
24. Randal C. Archibold. (August 3, 2012). "Panama: President Ends Blockade at Newspaper". The New York Times.