Journalists at the Service of Power: the Cesspool of Media Operators

Uruguay is witnessing a nauseating masquerade that exposes journalism for what it really is:a gang of media operators at the service of the left and the social democratic consensus, that is, the political class as a whole; which Yamandú Orsi represents with his incoming government on March 1, 2025.

What was once sold as a noble profession, dedicated to truth and oversight of power, has become a grotesque farce where communicators like Martín Lees, Iliana da Silva, Verónica Amorelli, and Leonardo Silvera shamelessly leave newsrooms and television sets to climb into public positions in Orsi's administration. This makes it clear between the lines that these past 5 years they were dedicated to media operations.

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This is not a career change; it is the definitive confession that their supposed independence was always a lie,a tool to manipulate public opinion and support a political agenda that now rewards them with state salaries. Uruguayan journalism has no credibility because it never had any: it is a nest of propagandists disguised as informers.

Take Martín Lees, for example. For more than 30 years he was the face of Subrayado on Canal 10, reading news with that feigned calm that made grandmothers believe they were in front of a serious journalist. In December 2024, after a retirement that lasted as long as a sigh, he announced that he would be Orsi's Presidential Communication Director. What was Lees doing in 2019, when he interviewed Daniel Martínez during the campaign? Or in 2015, when he covered Tabaré Vázquez's events? His neutral tone, his mild questions, were pure theater: he was paving the way for the Broad Front, operating from the shadows while pretending impartiality. Now, from the Executive Tower, he will not inform: he will embellish speeches and filter uncomfortable truths.

Then there's Iliana da Silva, the trustworthy smile of Telemundo on Canal 12. Until January 2025, she presented the 7 PM newscast with that mix of serenity and authority that made her seem like a reliable source. But her announcement that she would be Deputy Director of Communication under Lees shattered that credibility. Do you remember her coverage of the 2022 general strike, when the PIT-CNT paralyzed the country? Her report was so soft on the unions —historical allies of the Broad Front— that it seemed like an infomercial. For years, da Silva used her seat on the newscast to shape perceptions, not to question them. Her leap to the government is the proof: she was not a journalist, she was a media operator waiting for the moment to cash her check in the social democratic administration.

Verónica Amorelli, panelist of "Esta boca es mía" also on Canal 12, is another piece of this rotten puzzle. On January 15, 2025, amidst tears and vague phrases about “new horizons,” she said goodbye to the program to join the press secretariat of the Canelones Municipality, Orsi's stronghold where the Broad Front has reigned for decades. What did Amorelli say in 2023, when she debated municipal taxes on the program? She criticized with a small mouth, always careful not to hurt her future bosses. Her stint in Carámbula's orbit in 2020, as an informal advisor, already smelled of political commitment. Now, from Canelones, she will continue operating, but without the effort of pretending neutrality. Her credibility was as solid as a house of cards in a hurricane.

And let's not forget Leonardo Silvera, another of Telemundo's “serious” ones. This communicator announced on January 20, 2025, that he was leaving Canal 12 for a “technical position” in the Ministry of the Interior.

Uruguayan journalism, almost as a whole, is a machinery at the service of the social democratic left, not only Broad Front, since the system is perpetuated by all political parties, which have hegemonized the narrative since the 90s. These operators do not inform: they manipulate. For decades, they have used the media as trenches to impose a worldview where the Broad Front is the hero and any alternative is the villain.

Who doesn't remember the sugar-coated coverage of the Vázquez and Mujica governments? The headlines of El País or the reports of Canal 4 and 10 about the “Uruguayan miracle” of economic prosperity ignored the debts, inflation, and deals that today explode in the country's face. Meanwhile, any criticism of the social democratic model —eternal subsidies, stifling statism, political correctness— was silenced or ridiculed as “neoliberal” by these same communicators.

These journalists are not credible because their profession was never to inform, but to indoctrinate. They have turned public opinion into a domesticated herd, incapable of questioning the progressive gospel they preach from their media pulpits. Every complacent interview, every calculated silence, every rigged debate was a brick in the wall of the social democratic consensus that crushes diversity of thought. And now, with Orsi in the presidency, they collect their prize: public positions where they will continue manipulating, but without the effort of disguising themselves as independents.

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On March 1, 2025, when Orsi takes office, he will not only take the reins of a country; he will inherit an army of media operators who have moved from newsrooms to offices without a gram of shame. This is not a labor exodus; it is a mortal blow to any illusion that Uruguayan journalism has any integrity. They are a fraud, a scam to the citizens who still believe that behind the cameras there is something more than ambition and servility. While Lees writes speeches, da Silva filters headlines, Amorelli silences truths, and Silvera adjusts numbers, the country is left with fewer voices and more echoes of a left that no longer needs masks to show who is in charge.

By Pedro Ponce de León.