Today’s Diario Libre, a paper that is distributed for free throughout the country, blasted the Listin Diario, the nation’s widest-read paper, for presenting what it calls an “unrealistic” picture of the Dominican Republic. The Listin Diario, taken over by the government last May on the heels of the Baninter fiasco, is accused of sweetening the local situation until it is “nearly unrecognizable.” According to the Diario Libre, the principle news sources are government officials with something to say. According to reporter Klyner Lopez, an analytical look at the paper would show there was a tendency to shroud the truth under a mantle of false optimism. As an example, Lopez cites the 7 February headline that declared, “The government is up to date on foreign debts.” The text of the story, however, clearly showed the existence of pending debts and the need to renegotiate terms with the Paris Club. There is also, according to the reporter, a clear preference to favor the reformist Presidential candidate, Eduardo Estrella, giving recent front-page coverage to a political caravan in San Pedro de Macoris.