During nearly eight decades, Télam has reaped well-earned prestige at a national and international scale, as the most important Latin American news agency and the second most important in the Spanish language, with a service of news wires that provides information to over 63,000 users and a website visited by 8,7 million people, monthly.
However, the national government’s decision to shut down the offices and interrupt the agency’s activities poses a serious threat to Argentina’s informative sovereignty and the supply of content to the country’s media, which will be unable to access the news articles, chronicles, photos, infographics and audiovisual content that Télam provides daily. This will, in effect, become a blackout that will affect Télam’s 803 subscribers. The agency also provides a free-access digital content service, available in its website and social media.
According to data provided by a report published in October 2023, every month Télam produces 12,844 news wires, 6,030 photographs, 761 bulletins, 72 infographics, 152 audios and 402 videos. Different media downloaded 395K news wires from the agency and used 24,996 photos.
Télam has 760 staff and 27 correspondents’ offices across the entire country, which employ over 50 journalists.
The agency also has special correspondents in Brazil, Chile, the United Kingdom and the Vatican City. Since last year, an itinerant correspondent in Antarctica covers the activities annually developed in Argentina’s stations in the White Continent.
President Javier Milei announced in a speech to Congress on March 1st that he would shut down Télam, and 48 hours later, the agency’s headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires were fenced off by the police and workers sent on leave for seven days, a decision informed by Diego Chaher, the government-appointed auditor.
However, until now, the intention of shutting down Télam has not been formalized in any official document.
On April 14, 1945, then Secretary of Work and Social Welfare, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón promoted the creation of Télam with the aim of disrupting the hegemony of United Press International (UPI) and Associated Press (AP) in Argentina.
Journalist Jerónimo Jutronich was the state agency’s first Director. In 1947, the headquarters were located in 433 Esmeralda St, where Maipo Theater was later built and opened.
In 1955, after the coup d’état perpetrated by the so-called Revolución Libertadora (Liberating Revolution), the agency was controlled by the Air Force and its staff significantly reduced. Despite the layoffs, Télam continued providing services as usual.
Under the presidency of Arturo Frondizi, Télam was renamed “Télam Sociedad Anónima, Periodística, Radiofónica, Cinematográfica, Comercial, Inmobiliaria y Financiera”.
Télam increased its activities, incorporated new clients and began to send news by telex, which translated into faster communications and more subscribers in every Argentine city.
In 1963, President de facto José María Guido briefly closed Télam for allegedly “disseminating false and biased information”, in the context of the imposed martial law.
Five years later, another dictatorship, this time led by Juan Carlos Onganía, strengthened the agency’s state stockholding and set a new framework for Télam to design and allocate all state advertising, which allowed the agency to have financial resources of its own.
After Juan Domingo Perón was elected president again, it was decided that Argentine news could only be broadcast and disseminated by national companies, which strengthened Télam’s position in the news market and opened the door for the creation of private news agencies, such as Noticias Argentinas.
During the last civic-military dictatorship, Télam’s headquarters were moved to 531 Bolívar St, and the agency then responded to the genocidal regime’s agenda of propaganda, which imposed a strict censorship over the agency’s services that even included an international black market of information.
The situation got worse during the Malvinas War, in 1982, when Télam, together with state TV station ATC, were the only media authorized to provide news concerning the conflict, covering directly from the islands.
In sum, as a consequence of state terrorism, three workers of Télam are still desaparecidos (disappeared, believed killed) and the agency’s news and photographic archives were scrapped, a fact that was proven during Raúl Alfonsín’s constitutional government.
When democracy was reestablished, the owners of private agencies Noticias Argentina and Diarios y Noticias (DyN) pressured Alfonsín’s administration to shut down Télam, as they accused the state agency of “unfair competition”.
Alfonsín’s government paid no heed to these requests and appointed journalist Mario Monteverde as Chairman of Télam. Monteverde gave prestige to the agency by incorporating it to UNESCO’s Latin American news service.
In the 1990s, Carlos Menem’s administration appointed an auditor who tried to sell off the agency and wrest control of official advertising, to no avail.
In the context of a structural austerity program, Fernando de la Rúa’s administration announced that the agency would cease to allocate official advertising and the Bolívar St. headquarters would be sold, two decisions that, again, were finally not executed.
Two years later, President Eduardo Duhalde created “Télam Sociedad del Estado” (Télam State Company), which turned the agency into an independent state company.
Between 2019 and 2023, Télam’s operations increased by almost 1,174%, and the regular government budget allocations were reduced by 36,46%.
In 2003, under the presidency of Néstor Kirchner, journalist Martín Granovsky was appointed Director of Télam. A work dispute provoked a 38-day workers’ strike.
In 2014, the agency incorporated newsroom offices on Belgrano Avenue: an eight-story building with video editing studios, radio studios and journalistic archives.
One year later, under the presidency of Mauricio Macri, Hernán Lombardi was appointed Director of the System of Public Media and imposed a gradual and continual downsizing of the agency, which damaged the quality of its services.
In 2018, Télam’s website stopped offering news articles translated into English and Portuguese, the agency’s supplements were closed, the National Report publication was shut down and Télam Radio stopped broadcasting.
That downsizing plan resulted in the dismissal of 357 staff workers and the closing of the correspondents’ offices.
Then, an over 120-day strike began, demanding for the reincorporation of the laid-off staff, which included a peaceful presence of the staff in the offices on Bolivar St. and Belgrano Av.
Meanwhile, Télam’s editors in chiefs worked in an office in Tecnópolis, in the district of Villa Martelli, far from the agency’s staff.
Télam’s workers brought the conflict to the Labor Courts and, by the end of 2019, a judge ruled in favor of the reincorporation of most laid-off workers.
The following year, thanks to the effort and commitment of its workers, Télam regained the quality and prestige of its services. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Télam took on an important social role, with the launching of the “Confiar” (Trust) website, with the objective of counteracting the fake news spread during the health alert situation.
Between 2019 and 2023, Télam’s operations increased by almost 1,174%, and the regular government budget allocations were reduced by 36,46%.
Along its history, thanks to the presence and commitment of its workers, Télam continues being an essential and irreplaceable actor in Argentina’s news scene. Télam is needed and the Argentine people know it.