Ecuador's media watchdog fined several news outlets $3,750 each for not publishing a story about alleged offshore bank accounts owned by recent presidential contender Guillermo Lasso.
According to UPI, the Superintendent of Information and Communication, or Supercom, said it fined newspapers El Comercio, La Hora, Expreso and El Universo, and television channels Televicentro, Teleamazonas and Ecuavisa for not publishing the story.
Originally, the story was published by the left-wing Página 12 Argentine newspaper.
Supercom head Carlos Ochoa Hernández said, “This information was omitted from the public, which was how censorship occurred.” He added the fine was in order to motivated the outlets “to improve their journalistic practices.”
Ecuador's communication law punishes “the deliberate and recurrent failure to disseminate issues of public interest” and considers it an act of censorship.
Some outlets claim that could not verify the original report and that was why they didn't run the story.