The Death of Barricada: politics and professionalism in the post-Sandinista press.

This article examines two decades in the life of Barricada, established as the "official organ" of the revolutionary Sandinista Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua, from its founding in 1979 through to its demise as a daily in 1998. It is argued that, distinct from the overriding "mobilizing imperative" of support for its Sandinista sponsor, an institutionally generated "professional imperative" was also evident in Barricada's functioning from the early days of the paper's operations. After the FSLN's election defeat in 1990, this professional imperative-along with the political preference of most senior staff for "renovation" within the FSLN-resulted in the paper establishing a significant degree of day-to-day autonomy from its sponsor, and important transformations in its journalistic project. This semi-autonomy was foreclosed when the dominant ortodoxo faction of the Front engineered the dismissal of Barricada director Carlos Fernando Chamorro in 1994. Barricada then returned to its more highly mobilized role as FSLN propagandist, but lost readers and advertising revenue as a result, finally closing in February 1998. The newspaper's trajectory serves as a useful bellwether for Nicaragua's revolutionary and post-revolutionary experience as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]