Self-regulation in Portugal: a work in (slow) progress

The more liberal traditions always tended to emphasize the pole of freedom (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the so-called ‘marketplace of ideas’) and, therefore, to refuse any direct or indirect interference from the State or other external entities in order to regulate media activity. According to this perspective, free market, associated with the free choice of people to consume or to reject this or that particular medium, achieves some kind of indirect regulation (allegedly promoting what has quality and punishing what is bad), without putting freedom at stake.