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THE MEDIA |
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Though the Costa Rican press is free, it does indulge in a certain
follow-the-leader style of journalism. Leader of the pack is the daily
La Nación , voice of the (right-of-centre) establishment and owned by
the country's biggest media consortium. It also comes with a useful
daily pull-out arts section, Viva , with listings of what's on in San
José - the classifieds are handy for almost anything, including long-term
accommodation.
La República is no less serious, but slightly more downmarket. Al Día is
the populist "body count" paper. Alternative voices include La Prensa
Libre , the very good left-leaning evening paper, and the thoughtful
weekly Esta Semana , which offers longer, in-depth articles and opinion
pieces. The Semanario Universidad , the voice of the University of Costa
Rica, published weekly, certainly goes out on more of a limb than the
big dailies, with particularly good coverage of the arts and the current
political scene. You can find it on campus or in San Pedro.
Local English-language papers include the venerable and serious Tico
Times and the full-colour Costa Rica Today , intended for tourists, with
articles on activities and holidays. Both can be a good source of
information for travellers, and the ads regularly feature hotel and
restaurant discounts. You can pick up recent copies of the New York
Times, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Miami Herald, Newsweek,
Time and sometimes the Financial Times in the souvenir shop beside the
Gran Hotel Costa Rica in downtown San José and La Casa de Revistas on
the southwest corner of Parque Morazan. Elsewhere, they're difficult to
find.
There are many commercial radio stations in Costa Rica, all pumping out
the techno and house tunes-of-the-moment alongside salsa, commercials,
and the odd bout of government-led pseudo-propaganda. Most Costa Rican
households have a television , which shows wonderfully awful Mexican/Venezuelan
telenovelas (soap operas) and some not bad domestic news programmes.
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