For the second week, Buenos Aires' La Prensa was closed down. The independent conservative newspaper, one of the most respected in the world, was in a fight for its existence against Juan Peron. It had been shut down by the refusal of the government-bossed news vendors' union to handle it unless La Prensa gave the union 20% of its ad revenues and exclusive right to distribute the newspaper in Buenos Aires.
The reason for the shutdown was perfectly clear to La Prensa's publisher, Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, an unflinching foe of Peron. The stoppage was no labor dispute, but "a new episode in our years-long battle to remain independent." During the battle, Dr. Gainza Paz had been briefly imprisoned by Peron, his newsprint stocks had been seized and the paper had been harassed in dozens of other ways. News print rationing had forced La Prensa (circulation 380,000 daily, 480,000 Sunday) to cut from about 40 to twelve pages daily.
But this was the first time under Peron that La Prensa had been forced to shut.
Although Dr. Gainza Paz appealed for police intervention last week so La Prensa could reopen, the police played deaf.
Free Press. Within the limits of its shrunken size, La Prensa still maintains the proud tradition established by Found, er Jose C. Paz, Gainza Paz's granduncle.
It has never accepted a political ad nor solicited an ad of any kind; it lets adver tisers come to it. On a big local story, it still assigns as many as 30 reporters and photographers, blanketing all other news papers with sharply written coverage, has yet to run a byline over any staffer's sto ry. Before Peron, La Prensa often printed 30 to 40 columns of cable news daily thought nothing of ordering null treaties and other important state papers by cable so that it could print the full texts.
Free Services. An institution as much as a newspaper, La Prensa provides a free medical clinic (23 doctors) and free legal advice (six lawyers) for its staff and the people of Buenos Aires. It runs an excellent free library, a free music school (100 students). It also maintains its own delivery service, a hangover from 19th Century days of uncertain mails. Though few ask such service nowadays, La Prensa will still deliver in Argentina any letter addressed in care of its stately headquarters across the street from the presidential palace.
Best opinion in Buenos Aires is that the newspaper, which earned an estimated $1,000,000 a year before the war, is still financially strong. Materially as well as spiritually, embattled La Prensa is well equipped to fight a long siege.