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Ecuador fines 7 news outlets for not publishing article

By Andrew V. Pestano
Carlos Ochoa Hernández, the head of Ecuador's Superintendent of Information and Communication, on Friday held a press conference in which he announced a fine of $3,750 each against seven media outlets for not publishing a story about alleged offshore bank accounts owned by recent presidential contender Guillermo Lasso. Photo courtesy of Supercom
Carlos Ochoa Hernández, the head of Ecuador's Superintendent of Information and Communication, on Friday held a press conference in which he announced a fine of $3,750 each against seven media outlets for not publishing a story about alleged offshore bank accounts owned by recent presidential contender Guillermo Lasso. Photo courtesy of Supercom

April 24 (UPI) -- Ecuador's media watchdog fined seven media outlets for not publishing an article about alleged offshore bank accounts owned by recent presidential contender Guillermo Lasso.

The Superintendent of Information and Communication, or Supercom, said it fined newspapers El Comercio, La Hora, Expreso and El Universo, and television channels Televicentro, Teleamazonas and Ecuavisa for not carrying a story published by the left-wing Página 12 Argentine newspaper in March.

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The media companies said they will appeal Supercom's fine of $3,750 each. The outlets and Supercom accuse each other of censorship.

"This information was omitted from the public, which was how censorship occurred," Supercom head Carlos Ochoa Hernández said during a press conference on Friday, adding that the fine was imposed to "motivate [the outlets] to improve their journalistic practices."

Ecuador's 2013 communication law -- Article 18 of the Organic Law of Communication -- punishes "the deliberate and recurrent failure to disseminate issues of public interest" and considers it an act of censorship. The law requires journalism to be verified.

The report alleging Lasso held offshore bank accounts came out weeks before Ecuador's April 2 presidential election. Some Ecuadorian media outlets that published the report said they did so because of the communication law.

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Some outlets that did not publish the story said they could not verify Página 12's report. Ochoa Hernández said Página 12's report should have warranted further investigation by the outlets because it related to a presidential candidate and the public interest.

Following a recount of nearly 1.3 million presidential votes last week, Ecuador's National Electoral Council once again declared Lenín Moreno the winner of the election, this time by a slightly wider margin over Lasso.

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