Special Report: The construction of the media agenda in the capital of the Movimiento Popular Neuquino (MPN) [Neuquén People’s Movement, the dominant local political party].

Kiñe | One.

What information appears when I Google the name “Claude Staicos”?

An official page titled “laverdaddemilo.com“. 2) An official X account (https://x.com/claudestaicos?lang=es) promoting the political and public acts of the Provincial Government of Neuquén, featuring the latest public actions of Governor Rolando Figueroa: narcomenudeo [small-scale drug trafficking], Law 3515, an agreement with the company Phoenix, a tribute to Juan José de San Martín, progress on the primary school construction in the Nehuen Che neighborhood. 3) Seven journalistic articles from alternative media outlets (La Izquierda Diario, Resumen Latinoamericano, Prensa Obrera, ANRed) featuring keywords such as: “violence,” “institutional violence,” “gender-based violence,” “kidnapping,” “abuse of power,” “censorship.” 4) Eleven videos disseminating the exact moment a minor is forced by state agents in the city of Neuquén to be taken away from his mother’s custody (several links containing these videos are labeled “This page is not available”).

Epu | Two

What does not appear on Google when I type “Claude Staicos”?

A link directing me to Diario Río Negro or LM Neuquén. Nor can any coverage from Canal 7 de Neuquén or Canal 10 de Río Negro be found. Much less a podcast from LU5. The silence is total. A veritable media blackout in favor of a state official. Why? Who is Claude Staicos?

Kvla | Three

What does this media blackout mean?

A judicial gag order typically arises from one or a series of defamation lawsuits against a specific person. What is unprecedented or novel in this case is that all local mass media are acting in chorus, collectively agreeing not to expose or utter the name Claude Staicos in connection with allegations of gender-based violence and vicarious violence [a form of violence where children are used to harm the other parent], despite numerous anonymous individuals (close to the victim) and social organizations who are doing so, to the point of making a series of incriminating recordings go viral. These recordings detail different forms of violence: institutional violence, abuse of power, verbal and psychological abuse. Physical violence.

This silence confirms for us, as citizens and readers, what we have always suspected: the mass media have the power to put certain topics on the agenda—or not—, to create a biased reality, to expose or protect certain citizens, depending on their ideological position and political influence.

Claude Staicos is not just anyone; he is not a common citizen, at least, not in “communicative terms”. Claude Staicos is the current Secretary of the Press of Neuquén, appointed in November 2023 by the Governor of Neuquén, Rolando Figueroa. The media gag order to protect his integrity places him in a sordid and sinister position, close and similar to the one we recognized in Alfredo Yabrán, a businessman from the Menem era [1990s]. He was the mastermind behind the murder of photojournalist José Luis Cabezas, who was executed with two shots to the head for making Yabrán’s face public. Until that moment, Yabrán’s face had been anonymous, an unknown figure on the map of corruption. Thus, as a result of a journalist lifting the veil…

Meli | Four

Silence Only Produces New Femicides

Local mass media often pick up trivial videos shared by Neuquén citizens on their personal social media as a form of public shaming or complaint, but this time they found it “uncomfortable” to publish the video that circulated on August 20, 2025, which shows provincial police personnel forcibly removing the shared son of Sabio and Staicos from inside Kindergarten No. 65 in the city of Neuquén. The order was issued and supervised by the Children’s Ombudsperson, Natalia Stornini, and family judge Luciano Speroni.

Alejandra Sabio was beaten, pinned to the floor, and handcuffed, while her brother filmed with his cell phone from behind a fence. From that place of powerlessness, the video went viral. The whole country saw it. It even reached other national media like Crónica and TN Noticias. For his part, journalist Alejandro Bercovich dedicated a segment to it in his program “Pasaron cosas” (“Things Happened”), broadcast daily on “Con Vos” radio.
In contrast, LM Neuquén, Canal 7, Diario Río Negro, Mejor Informado, Diariamente Neuquén remained on the sidelines, silent to this day, without uttering a single word on the matter, regarding a case that is already in the courts.

For much less, the leaders of the Movimiento Popular Neuquino (MPN) have cut loose various lower-ranking members of their party. Why can’t Claude Staicos be considered a dispensable pawn? What agreements has he signed with the government of Rolando Figueroa for him (Staicos) to enjoy this colossal legal and communicational iron dome? What blood pact does he maintain with the MPN? What does Claude Staicos mean when he says, “I need you to work for me, I need a player who plays hard. If you’re going to chicken out, we can’t work together“? How far can Staicos’s ambition go? For much less, the resignation of public officials has been demanded.

In this vein, the absence of the name Claude Staicos in relation to a history of violence against his ex-partner factually reveals what the entire public in Neuquén knows: the reckless, murky, and criminal relationship between local media, the MPN, and the judicial system (Staicos is also a lawyer) is real and palpable. The ability to divert attention, construct meaning, and determine the regional media agenda is evident. And in this case, we can witness all the textures woven into the same extensive criminal canvas.

In this regard, the General Prosecutor of Neuquén, José Ignacio Gerez, was blunt with the warning he conveyed to Alejandra Sabio: to omit “the reading of the formal accusation” against you, you must not make any more publications on social media against Claude Staicos. Of course, Sabio never listened to him and reported both him and the prosecutor Carolina Mauri, who is also involved in the case.

Statistically, it is proven that silence only produces new forms of violence against the integrity of women, increasing the rate of femicides.

Before closing this chapter, it may be illustrative to look with perspective at the case of the former Neuquén prosecutor Sandra González Taboada (see “La dueña del videoclub” [“The Video Store Owner”]), who currently (for a short time, perhaps) enjoys the same privilege as Staicos: a prosecutor who has been media-shielded in her complicit and cover-up role in the forced disappearance and murder of Sergio Ávalos (try typing the full name of this prosecutor into Google and see what results it gives you). A public official also linked to the MPN with media and judicial protection.

Kechu | Five

Agenda Setting

“If it doesn’t appear in the media, it didn’t happen,” professes a maxim from the classical theory of communication history. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, founders of the Agenda Setting concept (1972), managed to explain that the media have the ability to impose public discussions and/or omit others. The media can operate and produce a strategically manipulated discourse! They can put words in the mouths of citizens and have them repeated ad nauseam. We have suffered this in recent decades with the political “crack” [literally “grieta,” (Spanish)… meaning deep political polarization], where the apparently broad spectrum of leaders, mostly from Buenos Aires, is imposed on the rest of the provinces without questioning whether the provincial candidates are truly Kirchnerists and/or Macrists. It is taken for granted that the rest of the country has the same priorities, concerns, and ideological definitions. Self-criticism seems diffuse. This focus on the broadcast is currently known as framing, related to a series of behavioral cues offered by the media to potential readers: colors, phrases, visual elements, common places. The re-signification of a patriotic identity (to the detriment of diversity) through the deeds of military leaders (Julio Argentino Roca), Argentine national soccer team campaigns (World Cup), achievements of state-managed companies (fracking records in Vaca Muerta by YPF) can be another great example of framing.

On his LinkedIn profile, Claude Staicos specifies his time at different local, privately-owned media outlets: managing director at Canal 24/7 (December 2014), executive director at AM 550 (December 2012), managing director at Metro (February 2008), general executive director at Prisma Multimedios (2004). What is striking is that after more than 20 years within the local mass media, no journalist has dared to speak out (for or against), which reinforces the hostile and threatening profile of Staicos.

What are they afraid of? Retaliation? From whom? Professional, legal, or physical?

In this context, recalling the figure of Diego Spagnuolo (former head of the Disability Agency) and the bribes in the Libertad Avanza party [the national political party of President Javier Milei], the figure of (repentant) collaborators could provide many clues about crimes committed in the city. Did no one suffer lynchings inside Las Palmas while the nightclub was open? Did no one see, know, or witness how the police savagely beat a friend, a family member, their partner, inside this nightclub? In this sense, and continuing with the figure of Staicos, do the workers of La Metro, AM 550, Canal 24/7 have nothing to contribute? What is the opinion of the workers of Radio y Televisión del Neuquén (RTN)?

[Image: A group of people, possibly a protest or meeting.]

Who handles gender-based violence cases within LM Neuquén and Diario Río Negro? What would Laura Loncopan Berti, gender editor at Diario Río Negro, think of this case? Has Ángel Casagrande, general editor of LM Neuquén, ever met with Claude Staicos? Did he receive a phone call from Juan Carlos Schroeder (director of LM Neuquén)? Is a small, closed-door meeting between Rolando Figueroa, Staicos, and Schroeder admissible? More than once these three figures of power have been together, in contact, triangulating information, agreements, articulating specific messages that the provincial government needed to broadcast, through LM Neuquén, to the rest of the population. The fracking records in Vaca Muerta are a good example of this.

It is state policy to encourage production in Vaca Muerta [the massive shale oil and gas field in Neuquén]. A hard data point that is kept updated in the regional media, unlike investigations into, for example: a) the contaminated surface area in Vaca Muerta, b) the relationship between earthquakes in Sauzal Bonito and hydraulic fracturing, c) the increase in problematic substance use among oil union employees, d) the deliberate risks run by workers and citizens when driving on the roads of Vaca Muerta. Diario Río Negro doesn’t do it, much less Claude Staicos as Secretary of the Press. Will university professors in communication programs dare to cite this case?

Currently, the MPN has several fronts open due to the entrenched corruption within its organization: the social welfare plan fraud (in which the main accused pointed to public officials like Mariano Gaido, Omar Gutiérrez, and Claudio Domínguez. None of the three leaders have spoken out or attempted to defend themselves), the impeachment of former Vice-Governor Gloria Ruiz and her brother Pablo Ruiz, accused of irregularities with public funds. The advance, after 22 years, of the case for the disappearance of Sergio Ávalos, which exposed several public officials, including former Governor Jorge Sobisch and the former rector of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Ana Pechen. And now, a new page of complaints against the Secretary of the Press. From within the MPN, an intransigent protocol has been activated to ensure these complaints do not prosper, fixing media attention on other possible illicit events, in a context of national elections.

The responsibility for dissemination was assumed by anonymous individuals, ordinary people, social activists who did not hesitate to put their bodies on the line and raise their cell phones to issue an immediate, effective, and transcendent complaint, assuming a responsibility that “local professional journalists” cannot or are prevented from carrying out with the autonomy and commitment required in these cases. The task of informing is not for everyone. And in turn, given the digital age, it is within everyone’s reach. And no matter how much Staicos and the MPN block the hegemonic channels, alternatives always emerge, cracks in the wall containing their communicational dam.

Who will save us from the visionaries of the world who insist on putting their knee on our heads in the name of our own well-being?

Claude Staicos represents the kind of journalism that is proposed and executed in the capital of Vaca Muerta: servile, infamous journalism, functional to the MPN and the extractive model. Claude Staicos is the most powerful explanation for why good, committed, and ethically grounded journalism cannot be done within the local hegemonic media. All the criminal paths, of the province’s greatest ills, lead to the homes of their directors: corruption, crimes against press freedom, bribery, influence peddling, prevarication [misconduct by a public official].

In a very suspicious move, dated November 3, 2023, Claude Staicos transferred, in the name of Horacio Fernando Nicolás, all the companies that were under his name until that moment. An agile and stealthy move that was detailed in the official bulletin of the date: “Water Tech Argentina S.R.L.”, “Irradia S.R.L.”, “Mejor Energía SAS”, “Metro Comercial S.R.L.”, “Radios del Valle S.R.L.”, “El Abrelatas S.R.L.”, “Prima Multimedios S.R.L.” On December 10, 2023, Claude Staicos assumed the position of Secretary of the Press and Communication. Who is Horacio Nicolás? How can informational ethics, access to quality information, and data integrity deteriorate in the face of this pernicious concentration and hoarding of media?

Claude Staicos is not a competent professional, nor is he a talented person, not even a good journalist. Claude Staicos is corrupt, the reflection of the harmful cultural campus that abounds within the MPN: professional applauders, docile and easily influenced. Usurers, active in clientelism, propagandists of misery, practitioners of tireless fellatios. In the MPN-ist orgy everyone seeks the prized spoils from the state coffers. And everyone forgets the main motto of public service: to serve the people honestly.

Claude Staicos lowers the bar for journalism. He turns it into a disloyal profession, an obsolete commodity, a trinket. He places an insignificant price on it, subtracts and splits its very essence: to do what is right, to seek the truth, to tell the truth. To contribute to the construction of a better, more just, more supportive, more committed world. In times of crisis, to be the voice of the dispossessed, to denounce injustices, dehumanized acts. Claude Staicos represents the complete opposite; he is everything that is wrong. A monument to informational shame. A bouncer of the truth. The commander of the mafia-like corporation of silence. The doctor of dishonesty.

The meta-message expressed by Staicos’s behavior, the subtext of the silence he imposes through force and threats is, without a doubt, a mafia message. There can be no other reading of such a declaration of principles. Silence or complaint. Silence or expulsion. Silence or a dirty campaign. Corporate behavior or banishment. “You’re going to end up on the street,” Staicos once threatened Alejandra Sabio, in one of the innumerable brave interventions practiced by this champion of information.

Staicos’s impeccability is suspect! The silhouette of a mafia shapes his public smile. The capital of the cover-up silence shows us a new representative of impunity. How many media operators must intervene to keep Claude Staicos’s image safeguarded? “Son of a bitch! “You fucking failure!” “Trash!” Insults that Staicos repeats to sustain his grotesque and retrograde behavior. The communication specialist doesn’t know how to speak! He lacks pedagogy and consensus. He lost the gift, or it only works (his specialty) when he has to sell a “communication project,” seduce state capital, or “conquer” a woman’s will. The trap of the ruthless is not to show empathy in the presence of the pain produced by the enactment of their desires. Even if the main victims are their own loved ones. The blood of their blood. The people he claims to love and defend.

Translator’s Note: 

This is not just a translated article. As translator/transposer… It is a text that, the deeper I delved into its context, shattered my professional detachment. The Spanish idiom is apt: “se me cayeron todos los palos del sombrajo” —the entire framework of my understanding collapsed… ¿How can it be? Translating this became a gut-wrenching dive into a blueprint of impunity, where a political machine in Argentina’s Neuquén province systematically dismantles justice and co-opts the media. My task was not merely linguistic; it was an act of bearing witness to a state’s betrayal of its people.