Agencia Boliviana de Información (ABI)

The Agencia Boliviana de Información (ABI) is Bolivia’s official state news agency, based in La Paz and publishing in Spanish. It began operations on 6 February 1996 and produces and distributes news on government activity and national affairs, free of charge, through its website and social-media channels and via an RSS/syndication service used by other media and institutions. It describes itself as “el referente comunicacional del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia” (“the communication reference point of the Plurinational State of Bolivia”).

Media assets

News agency: ABI, the official state news agency, distributing text and photo coverage of national and government affairs from La Paz and across the country through its website and social-media accounts and via an RSS/syndication service used by other media and institutions. Its content is provided free of charge as official information of the Plurinational State.

Ownership and governance

ABI began operations on 6 February 1996 as Bolivia’s official state news agency, initially distributing information to media by email and fax over a private telematic network before launching its own website, and it has operated since within the state’s communications structures. Like the other Bolivian state media, it has functioned under the oversight of the Ministry of the Presidency, which reports directly to the president, with no arm’s-length governance separating it from the executive.

Because its management and direction are set through the government, ABI’s output tracks the priorities of whoever is in power, and it has been reorganised alongside the other state media at changes of administration. Following the 2025 general election, in which Rodrigo Paz won the October run-off and ended the long period of dominance by the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) that began in 2006, interrupted by the 2019-2020 interim government, the state media were restructured. As part of that reorganisation, the Paz government temporarily suspended ABI’s operations in November 2025, pending a review of the agency’s future; by 2026 the agency was again publishing through its official channels.

Then, by Supreme Decree 5566 of 2 March 2026, the government constituted the Unidad de Comunicación Estratégica del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia as a decentralised public entity under the Ministry of the Presidency, with no board and headed by an executive director general appointed by the president by supreme resolution, responsible for state communication, official channels and state-media policy. Bolivian reporting on the decree identified ABI among the state media administered by the new unit, alongside Radio Illimani – Red Patria Nueva and the state newspaper Ahora El Pueblo. ABI’s placement within this executive-controlled communications entity, whose leadership is a presidential appointment, is the core of its classification.

Source of funding and budget

ABI’s content is freely accessible and it does not sell advertising, so it is not commercially self-sustaining; it is funded by the state as part of the public-media system. SMM found no evidence that the agency generates advertising revenue or has a publicly available, independently audited standalone budget. The 2026 decree that created the state-communications unit provides that the unit and the media it administers may be financed from the Treasury and other public resources, consistent with ABI’s structural dependence on public funding. That dependence, in the absence of any commercial revenue, is itself a tie to the government.

Editorial independence

ABI has no structural guarantee of editorial independence, and its coverage has consistently aligned with the government in office. Content analysis conducted for SMM found that its output favoured the incumbent administration and was critical of that administration’s opponents, and that its editorial posture shifted when the government changed: having reflected the line of the 2019-2020 interim government, it realigned to support the subsequent MAS government, in the same pattern documented across the Bolivian state media. Recent ABI output under the Paz administration prominently foregrounds presidential and government activity, its mid-2026 wire is filled with coverage of President Paz and government institutions, presented as the official information of the state, though a fresh quantitative content analysis would be needed to measure the extent of this pattern in 2026.

That alignment is not offset by any effective external safeguard. ABI’s own mission statement invokes principles of veracity, plurality and journalistic ethics, but these are self-declared commitments rather than externally enforced guarantees. Bolivia’s constitution requires media to observe principles of truthfulness and responsibility, and the country has a National Press Tribunal composed of journalists’ appointees, but SMM found no independent, binding mechanism to assess or enforce the impartiality of ABI specifically. The European Union Election Observation Mission to the 2025 elections, reporting on the pre-reorganisation environment, before the March 2026 restructuring, found that the Bolivian state media operated under the government’s communication structures and gave most of their coverage to the government and the president, and recommended a law on public media to guarantee pluralism and independence from the executive.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no comprehensive AI law in force in Bolivia as of mid-2026, though AI-related legislation has been under consideration, with the Senate having approved an AI-related bill in October 2025 for further consideration, and SMM found no published editorial AI-governance policy for ABI. As a fully digital state news agency, ABI’s operations are inherently online: it publishes through its website and distributes via social media and RSS/syndication, and its digital orientation places it at the centre of the state’s online-information effort while following the government’s communication objectives.

Classification rationale

ABI is classified State-Controlled because it is the official state news agency, operating within the government’s communications apparatus under leadership appointed by the executive, funded by the state with no commercial revenue, and without any binding guarantee of editorial independence, and because its coverage prominently foregrounds and favours the government of the day. It is not an independently managed public-service news agency.

The 2025 change of government does not alter the classification. ABI was temporarily suspended during the post-election restructuring and then placed, by the March 2026 decree, within a new executive-controlled state-communications entity, and its live output continues to serve as the official information channel of the incumbent government, just as it did under previous administrations. Its subordination is structural, tied to state ownership and control rather than to any single party, and its classification is unchanged as State-Controlled for 2026.

July 2026