During the past few decades, Latin American governments’ recurrent attacks against journalists have contributed to the erosion of press freedom in the region and, relatedly, of the quality of democracy. Yet what pushes governments to harass journalists? We argue that governments are more likely to harass journalists when popular support for them drops. Due to the ability of journalists to influence public opinion, governments could perceive the harassment of journalists as a means to punish and silence those individuals who are seen as contributing to their decline in public support or as obstacles to regaining popularity. We test our argument on a sample of Latin American countries observed from 1990 to 2019. We find that declines in governments’ popular support lead to more harassment of journalists. Our research contributes to the debate on the determinants of press freedom and sheds further light on the current decline of democratic quality in Latin America.

在过去几十年中，拉丁美洲政府对记者的一再攻击导致了该地区新闻自由的侵蚀，以及与之相关的民主质量。然而，是什么促使政府骚扰记者呢？我们认为，当公众对记者的支持率下降时，政府更有可能骚扰记者。由于记者能够影响公众舆论，政府可能会将对记者的骚扰视为一种惩罚和压制那些被视为导致他们公众支持率下降或重新获得人气的人的手段。我们在 1990 年至 2019 年观察到的拉丁美洲国家样本上检验了我们的论点。我们发现，政府公众支持率的下降导致了对记者的更多骚扰。我们的研究为关于新闻自由决定因素的辩论做出了贡献，并进一步阐明了拉丁美洲当前民主质量的下降。