Journalists charge Congress candidates for coverage http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8611-journalists-charge-congress-candidates-for-coverage.html

Alejandra Barrios, the director of the National Election Monitoring Mission (MOE), says this phenomenon particularly hurts the less wealthy candidates, who secure their votes largely by seducing people with their ideas and rely "largely on media exposure" to convince citizens to vote for them. "Traditional" candidates on the other hand are not as much affected, as they secure their votes by making deals with community leaders or businessmen who use cash and favors to get neighborhood residents and company staff to vote for a certain candidate.

According to Eduardo Marquez, the exchange of money for interviews and news coverage will only end when the local government forces Colombian media bosses to stop their current labor practices and hire journalists, paying them regular salaries.He describes the current system of renting spaces to journalists and forcing them to sell adverts to make a living as "the greatest challenge towards producing fair and balanced information in Colombia, even greater than death threats or the actions of violent groups."