Pacific Media Watch

7 June 2012

GLOBAL: Pot-bangers attack public TV reporters

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An Argentinian newspaper vendor in Recoleta, Buenos Aires, displays a Clarin newspaper report on the pot-banging demonstration. Photo: David Robie / PMC
PMW ID
7967

BUENOS AIRES (Pacific Media Watch): Three journalists working for state-owned public television in Argentina have been attacked during a "cacerolazo" pot-banging protest in the capital of Buenos Aires over currency controls.

More than 2000 people banging casserole pots and frying pans with placards declaring "enough" participated in the economic hardship protest in the fashionable Recoleta district in the heart of Buenos Aires witnessed and photographed by a Pacific Media Watch reporter.

Several Argentinian journalists covering the event, including a three-member crew from the current affairs programme "6, 7,8" from Television Publicá who were assaulted by angry protesters, reported the mass circulation Spanish-language tabloid daily Clarin.

The English-language daily Buenos Aires Herald named the assaulted journalists as Lucas Martinez, Sergio Loguzzo and Ezequiel Schneider.

The protest, which began at the intersection of Avenues Santa Fe and Callao on the night of Friday, June 1, sparked a march to the central Obelisk area.

State officials, media groups and parliamentarians protested over the media assault.

Other protests against the economic policies of the government of President Christina Fernández de Kirchner also took place in the capital's Barrio Norte, Belgrano, Palermo, Flores and Caballito districts.

These were the first pot-banging demonstrations in Buenos Aires for almost a decade.

Protest images

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David Robie

Professor, PMC Director

Professor David Robie is an author, journalist and media educator specialising in Asia-Pacific affairs.

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