Peru
Peru’s mapped state media are uniform in type but split across two functions of the state. State Media Monitor maps two outlets, both classified State-Controlled (SC): the Instituto Nacional de Radio y Televisión del Perú (IRTP), the state broadcaster that runs TV Perú and Radio Nacional; and the Empresa Peruana de Servicios Editoriales (Editora Perú), the state publishing enterprise behind the official newspaper El Peruano and the news agency Andina. One carries the state’s voice on air, the other in print and wire copy. Both are owned or controlled by the Peruvian state, sustained either by state-budget funding or state-linked revenue, and directed by leadership the state appoints, with no binding safeguard for editorial independence.
What makes Peru distinctive is the political backdrop against which these outlets operate. Peru has cycled through an extraordinary run of presidents in recent years, and the state media’s alignment has tracked whoever holds power. That pattern, editorial direction following the government of the day rather than any fixed partisan line, is the clearest illustration of why both outlets are classified State-Controlled on structural rather than political grounds.
The Instituto Nacional de Radio y Televisión del Perú (IRTP), created in 1996, runs Peru’s public broadcasting: the television channels TV Perú, TV Perú Noticias, TV Perú Internacional, and Canal IPe, and the radio service Radio Nacional del Perú. It is classified State-Controlled because it is a public body attached to the executive through the Ministry of Culture, funded predominantly from the state budget, and directed by leadership the government appoints. A 2025 restructuring sharpened that dependence: a decree replaced the broadcaster’s Consejo Directivo and Presidencia Ejecutiva with a single Jefatura Institucional appointed by the Executive through the Ministry of Culture, a change the Consejo de la Prensa Peruana criticised for removing the limited internal checks the board had provided. Content analyses conducted for State Media Monitor found that while TV Perú features opposition voices, its overall editorial stance aligns with the government of the day, and successive heads of the institute have been drawn from or close to the governing camp.
The Empresa Peruana de Servicios Editoriales (Editora Perú) began operations in 1976 and publishes the official daily El Peruano, founded by Simón Bolívar in 1825 and among the oldest newspapers still in circulation in the Americas, together with the state news agency Andina. It is classified State-Controlled on the clearest of ownership grounds: the Peruvian state, through the state-enterprise fund FONAFE, is its sole shareholder, holding 100% of the company. Its board and management are appointed through that state structure, and it has no editorial firewall. Editora Perú’s income is heavily state-linked, rather than simply subsidised: public-sector clients account for most of its billing, and official publications are its most significant revenue source. This arrangement is reinforced by legal requirements that official norms be published in El Peruano, including a 2022 law barring the company from delaying them. Content analyses found the same government-aligned pattern in Andina and El Peruano that appears at the broadcaster, with coverage favouring the sitting administration.