Table 4: Front page of the newspaper El Tiempo, 1948

Photo: Carlos Amézquita, El Tiempo Archive

4.2. The 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s

4.2.1 Radio

Assassination of Rodrigo Lara, April 30, 1984. The announcers and journalists were astonished by the assassination of a minister, which, at the time, was unthinkable. The event was not understood, the possible culprits were not pointed out, nor was the problem of drug trafficking gauged, the journalists themselves were overcome with emotion and became disoriented in light of the event. One of the spectacular elements about the Minister’s assassination was the hitman, in this case, Bayron Velásquez. He was a 17-year-old, who had travelled from Medellin to Bogota to assassinate Rodrigo Lara, but since he did not know the city, he was quickly captured.

Murder of Luis Carlos Galán August 18, 1989. When comparing the radio coverage of this event with the assassination of Rodrigo Lara, five years later, the radio announcers are more measured. However, at the same time the morbidity increased among field journalists, who gave more space to daily sources, unknown to the listeners, such as some attendees at the demonstration where the candidate was assassinated, these sources recounted details of the incident excitedly. Unlike the assassination of Rodrigo Lara, where the information had almost no variations, in this case,