Who runs the media in Peru?
The media influence the daily lives of countless citizens, shaping national and international public opinion, setting the political agenda of the state and presenting a view of the past and present from a particular point of view.
In the last 20 years, strengthened by the arrival of the Internet and the biggest technology companies, media companies have achieved a reach never previously seen, in parallel with their transformation into huge multimedia groups carrying significant weight in other sectors of the economy.
Since their advent, they have become a key part of the democratic system, the rule of law and the protection and dissemination of the rights of the individual in society, including freedom of information and expression. These are keystones of the very existence of society and guarantors of a free and plural public opinion.
Plurality in the information and opinions available to the public is one of the prerequisites for freedom of expression. Media monopolies—and the use of a single source of information to present a fragmented and partial view of reality—is a barrier to the spread of individual thought.
It can be claimed that a society that is uninformed, is not free. It is therefore important that society knows who the real owners of the media are, who are their financiers, how many media they own, how much money they invest in other businesses and if they have political interests.
All this information enables the state, the citizens and the journalists themselves, to know which interests underpin the information we read in the newspapers, hear on the radio, see on the television and share on social media.
The objective of this platform—prepared by the German chapter of Reporters Without Borders and the investigative journalism digital media OjoPublico—is to reveal the world of the proprietors of news in Peru, and above all, to report on those who report to us.