Beyond the Barricades: Nicaragua and the Struggle for the Sandinista Press, 1979-1998 (review)

For one brief decade, Nicaragua—a country about the size of Iowa, with a slightly larger population and a much smaller economy—was elevated to an ill-deserved position of world historical significance. In those days, Managua's Inter-Continental Hotel was jammed with journalists, activists, spies, and scholars. Soon, a flood of publications on Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution and the country's modern history issued from scholarly presses and journals. But in 1990, the FSLN, Nicaragua's ruling revolutionary party, lost power in national elections. Soon, the "Inter" emptied out, the flood of publications abated, and Nicaragua was relegated to its accustomed obscurity.

Those who care about what happened after 1990 will want to read Adam Jones's Beyond the Barricades. This well-written book narrates the history of a key Sandinista institution, the party newspaper Barricada, from its origins in the 1979 victory over the Somoza regime to its demise two decades later. Since the fortunes of Barricada inevitably reflect the triumphs, defeats, and internal conflicts of the FSLN, the book is a useful contribution to the history of Sandinismo.

Jones, who is a student of comparative journalism, divides the history of Barricada into three main periods: 1979-90, the years of Sandinista rule, when Barricada presented itself as the official organ of the FSLN; 1991-94, clearly the period most interesting to Jones, during which a "de-officialized" Barricada operated in relative autonomy from the party; and 1994-98, when the "orthodox" current in the Frente's leadership, having imposed itself on the party apparatus, assumed control of the paper. A recurring theme in the narrative is the conflict between two guiding principles: the newspaper as the "vanguard's vanguard," dedicated to mobilizing Nicaraguan society behind a process of revolutionary change led by the FSLN, and the "professional imperative," oriented toward serving the reader with informative, independent, engaging reporting. Neither principle ever wholly eclipsed the other, but the vanguard conception was clearly predominant in the first and third phases and the professional imperative in the second.

Under the relatively soft authoritarianism of Sandinista rule, Barricada faced competition from opposition media—a circumstance that, Jones suggests, forced its editors to be conscious of professional considerations and prevented the paper from becoming quite as ponderous or partisan as its Cuban counterpart, Grandma. But it was the FSLN's unexpected electoral defeat in 1990 that created an opportunity to transform the paper. The election left the party in disarray, its leaders and policies discredited. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who directed the paper through most of its history, seized the moment to suggest that a more independent Barricada night draw more Nicaraguans to Sandinismo. In January 1991, Barricada was "de-officialized." The new Barricada would be Sandinista, but not narrowly partisan and not the party's official organ. The paper was reorganized to limit daily interference in its operations by party leaders and redesigned to de-emphasize its ties to the FSLN. Lively new features were added to attract readers.

Freed from the stifling obligation to defend the government and the party at every turn, Barricada became less predictable, less rhetorical, more varied, and more credible. According to Jones, the paper was critical of the new conservative government but defended its legitimacy. It embarrassed the FSLN with an investigation of a secret Managua arms cache. The paper was critical of the political violence apparently manipulated by certain sectors of the Sandinista leadership. There were, however, limits to autonomy. In particular, it never reported on the extensive looting of state assets by Sandinistas in the months following the election, which Nicaraguans called la piñata.

After almost four years, the autonomy experiment was cut off, as a direct result of a realignment...