Macri purges Argentina's Public Radio; new director "reviews Twitter pages."

Numerous longtime hosts at Argentina's National Radio, the country's leading public radio network, were dismissed today by the new director appointed by President Mauricio Macri, Ana Gerschenson.

Gerschenson previously managed multimedia productions for the local far-right news daily, La Nación.

Upon hearing of this decision, many of the leading figures at the station, including Carlos Barragán, Roberto Caballero, Luciano Galende, Cynthia García, Edgardo Mocca, Mariana Moyano, and Nora Veiras, asked for a meeting with Gerschenson, who claimed that "there are no signed contracts" with any of the affected radio hosts and journalists.

In an interview with local news daily Perfil Gerschenson said that the new programming schedule for 2016 had already been prepared in December and denied that the dismissals were a breach of contract. "The prior contracts," she said, "had been submitted by National Radio to RTA (the Argentine Public Broadcasting Corporation); but were rejected. Accordingly, they were expired contracts and this is what I explained to them."

The new director also denied that the dismissals were for political or ideological reasons. Commentators Cynthia Garcia and Jorge Halperín revealed, however, that after informing them of their dismissals, Gerschenson informed them that: "we've reviewed your Twitter pages."

Halperín and Carlos Barragán, who were both among those dismissed today by RTA, are no strangers to ideologically-motivated dismissals: the Clarín Group, the largest media conglomerate in Argentina, cancelled their top-rated current events round table, La siesta inolvidable ('An Unforgettable Nap'), in 2008 following a critical segment on Pope Benedict XVI; and in 2010, Macri, then Mayor of Buenos Aires, had Halperín's business program, Dinero ('Money') pulled from the air at City Radio.

"Sometimes the very actions of those who seek to punish others for their ideology," Halperín observed, "do more to unmask them than any of your own efforts to do so."

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