Abstract
In May last year we published two articles on the case of the Portuguese women writers popularly known as the ‘Three Marias’, who were then facing charges of ‘outraging the public morals and abusing the freedom of the press’. Before the issue was printed came the news of the overthrow of the Caetano regime, and we added a note on the acquittal of the Three Marias and their publisher, saying that, for the time being at least, censorship had been lifted.
Recent events have unfortunately given justification to the qualified tone of that statement. The political situation is a highly complex one and it would be rash to predict the final outcome. The fact remains that freedom of the press is once again in jeopardy, with the Communist Party wielding substantial control over what is printed or broadcast and what is not and with widespread State ownership of the media.
The long battle for the Socialist daily, República, has been extensively reported in the world press and is still unresolved at the time of writing. We intend to return to the subject of the Portuguese press in our next issue; today we print an article based on an interview with Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Editor of the successful independent mass-circulation weekly, Expresso, which was founded in 1973. The story seems highly significant in the present Portuguese context, showing the situation of the country's information media in a nutshell.