Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno promises a new era of press freedom and urges journalists to investigate government corruption.
The following is an excerpt of a 10 August 2017 CPJ blog post.
By John Otis/CPJ Andes Correspondent
Less than a month after taking office, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno engineered a ceasefire in the decade-long battle between the government and the nation’s independent news media by inviting a group of radio, TV, and newspaper editors to the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito.
At the cordial two-hour meeting in July, Moreno promised a new era of press freedom and urged his guests to embrace their watchdog function by investigating government corruption. He ended by declaring that the meeting would be “the first of many open dialogues with you.”
His conciliatory tone came as a shock. From 2007-13, Moreno served as a publicly loyal vice president to the combative Rafael Correa who stepped down as Ecuador’s president in May.
