Posted on Sun, Jan. 22, 2012

From the beginning of time journalists and elected officials in democratic societies have had painful and interdependent relationships. It is the nature of democracies to try to provide maximum freedom for responsible journalists and publishers while preventing dangerous misbehavior, libel and abuses of power.

A number of U.S. defenders of a free press, from The Miami Herald and Washington Post to the Committee to Protect Journalists, have taken an ongoing legal dispute between a powerful publishing family in Ecuador and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and have written of it as though it represented some new sort of Armageddon for the journalism profession.

To be very clear, no journalist in Ecuador has gone to jail, been kidnapped or paid a significant fine in the five years of the Correa presidency, even though El Universo, the newspaper owned by the Pérez family that these media watchdogs defend, published a scurrilous column about the president and an attempted coup against him that was factually untrue and far beyond any reasonable norm for criticism. Here is the background:

In September 2010, President Correa went to a rally of national police in Quito to respond to protests over changes in their compensation schemes. It soon became clear that this was not a peaceful rally. Shots were fired and there were casualties. He was taken to a hospital for the effects of tear gas, but the police and their allies surrounded the hospital and threatened more violence. Members of the military came to escort him out. It was a scary moment in a country that, before the president’s inauguration in 2007 had seven failed presidents in a decade.

Last February, a columnist for El Universo who now lives in South Florida wrote an attack in which he never used the president’s name, referring only to “The Dictator.” He claimed to have proof that the president ordered troops to fire on innocent people and accused him of “crimes against humanity” — genocide. The president demanded proof or a retraction, but got neither. And so he sued under a longstanding law that allows any citizen to sue when he feels libeled. He won the case in a court of law and so far has won each appeal.

The president has said that he will waive some or all of the penalties provided he gets a retraction of the offensive column.

So who is the victim in this dispute? Not the people of Ecuador. A recent objective analysis of Latin American public opinion by the Mexican polling firm Consulta Mitofski shows that President Correa is among the most popular leaders in the hemisphere. All social indicators in the country are heading in the right direction: employment is up; wages, up; literacy and health measurements, up; public engagement, up. The electorate will decide next year, assuming he seeks re-election, whether they think their president is a “dictator” or their chosen leader.

What should anyone do when lies are published about him? It appears to me that President Obama has been harmed by ludicrous false charges about his birthplace, citizenship and religion in the U.S In the U.K., journalists illegally routinely spied on ordinary citizens to get their stories. Where do ethics come into play in these situations? What are the rights of those who are injured or offended by these lies? Even elected officials have some right to the truth. Where is the public self-criticism among publishers and journalists?

Ecuador and Latin America — probably also the United States — all need more honest debate and dissent to build better democracies. But should principles of press freedom have no limit? Do honest journalists support the work of those who are unethical in their writings? Can you deliberately and falsely call me a narco-trafficker and then hide behind grand principles of media freedom?

At a time when winds of change whip through the world, perhaps it is time for a re-examination of the special immunities and responsibilities of the media. That’s what is underway today, in a messy, public and democratic way, in Ecuador.

Nathalie Cely presented her credentials to President Obama last week as the new ambassador for the Republic of Ecuador in Washington, D.C