On the penultimate day of last year, through Resolution 7147/2024, President Javier Milei’s government extended the suspension of ‘pauta oficial,’ the local term referring to state advertising, its use and the implicit exchange of cash for support that comes with it.
The Milei administration justified the measure, which extends the ban into a second year, by saying it is part of a plan to deepen “austerity and efficiency criteria” in the use of public resources.
But there’s a catch: only the National Public Administration is prohibited. Public firms or public-private enterprises are able to allocate funds for advertising and propaganda purposes without accountability or explanations – as occurred in 2024.
The issue of pauta is one of the La Libertad Avanza’s government favoured narratives. In its crusade against the press, President Milei and his officials boast about having suspended pauta and cutting off the supply of state funds to the media. This is not only false but obtuse. The criteria through which funds were allocated last year remains a mystery. An amendment to the regulations of the Public Information Access Law last year allows the authorities to withhold details about expenses and their beneficiaries.
Confusion surrounded news of the extension.The initial version of the resolution, published in the Official Gazette, referenced an old decree implying that Banco de la Nación Argentina (Bank of the Argentine Nation) and other state enterprises were now to be included in the suspension.
But a new version of the resolution, repeating the text of the previous year’s version, clarified that Banco Nación and other state firms enterprises were excluded from the suspension, meaning only the National Public Administration will be prohibited from using and deploying pauta, while other bodies may continue.
The experts’ view
Four professionals who work on and research the subject were contacted by the Perfil newspaper for their take. Martín Becerra, doctor of Information Sciences and principal researcher at CONICET; Pablo Secchi, director of the Poder Ciudadano NGO; Agustín Espada, director of the Master’s in Cultural Industries at the National University of Quilmes; and Santiago Marino, doctor of Social Sciences and professor at the University of San Andrés.
In comments to the newspaper, all four agreed that the Milei government is playing both sides. It claims there is “no money” and “no pauta,” while simultaneously distributing funds to media, producers, and journalists through other means without disclosing the allocation criteria.
Espada, along with José Jiménez, published a detailed report for the Chequeado fact-checking website based on government data about advertising and promotional expenses, using financial statements from state companies. One conclusion was that these companies spent 90 percent less than in 2023, except for state-run energy giant YPF, which maintained the same real-term investment as during Alberto Fernández’s tenure, totalling 33.17 billion pesos between June 2023 and June 2024.
“YPF hasn’t stopped pauta. In fact, it has a contract with [star national team footballer] Lionel Messi, and we know that involves a lot of money. That also counts as pauta oficial in public spaces, which increased exponentially this year, with a 10-to-one ratio compared to 2023,” Marino explained.
The expert emphasised that the suspension of state advertising in 2023 was only partially adhered to because there were state bodies that splashed out, and also because “the same National Public Administration, from September onwards, also did so.”
This was observed with promotional advertising publicising Milei’s tax-amnesty white-washing scheme and “the AFIP bureau, even before it was renamed ARCA,” he added.
Becerra described the recent announcement as “hypocritical.”
“The bodies that used pauta in 2023 not only engaged in their own marketing activities but also worked to promote the national government, including trips and transfers for pro-government presenters, money for TV programme producers, radio, print, and digital media. All of this was done through these companies,” he added.
– TIMES/PERFIL
