08 Feb 11 | Americas, Mexico
Mexico’s latest media scandal is the dismissal of popular radio and television host Carmen Aristegui, an incisive journalist who worked for the MVS radio network in the early morning slot. Her removal from the air was confirmed yesterday by Alejandro Vargas Guajardo, president of MVS Radio in a Twitter message reported the political news site Animal Politico.
Aristegui’s exit is linked to a report on the alleged alcoholism of President Felipe Calderon. Aristegui talked about the president’s alleged condition in her programme last week, after a group of congressmen from the leftist Workers Party (PT) hung a banner about the president’s alleged problem, while the Mexican Chamber of Deputies was in session. The chamber canceled the meeting because of the banner, but no other Mexican news outlet mentioned the incident. The banner in question asked rhetorically:
Would you let a drunkard drive your car?
In her news segment, Aristegui not only showed the disturbance in the Chamber of Deputies, but also asked
Does the president or does he not have an alcohol problem?… The presidency should give a clear and formal answer with respect to this
At first the radio network refused to give any details on her sacking, but an avalance of messages on Twitter and Facebook led the network to release an explanation. The official response simply said:
The journalist Carmen Aristegui transcended our ethics code and we have decided to end our contractual relationship
The president’s office also released a statement via its Labour Secretary Javier Lozano, they also said they would enforce their right of reply with the Radio Network MVS sometime this week.
Aristegui is a controversial figure in Mexico. She has been a well known reporter for the last 20 years and the top broadcaster for MVS News for the last two years.
In 2008, she also left W Radio, a national station owned by the Televisa network and the Spanish media consortium Prisa, because of editorial disagreements. Aristegui explained that she left “because of editorial incompatibilities.”
Aristegui is an award winning journalist who has received several Mexican journalism awards and Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Award.
07 Feb 11 | Americas, Mexico
In Mexico, politicians have began using social media to campaign. But they seem baffled as to how to deal with angry voters.
State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, potentially the next presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), stopped using Twitter when voters got cranky. “Twitter demands more horizontal communication and more dialogue, more exposure to criticism,” says one blog that reviewed how Peña Nieto’s handlers chose Facebook, where a clique of fans is more acceptable.
But the one politician who has forged ahead on Twitter is Manuel Lopez Obrador, the 2012 presidential candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party. According to Rendon who measured both candidates use of Twitter, Lopez Obrador, is prolific in this medium. To date he has almost 56,000 followers.
If you’re measuring the number of followers, the winner is President Felipe Calderon, with 400,000 followers. But on Twitter, power and influence is measured by the amount of retweets and the winner in this category — despite having only 17,000 — followers is Gerardo Fernandez Noroña, a congressman for the leftist Workers Party PT. Fernandez Noroña’s appeal is that he argues with his followers; those who dare to contradict him are targeted with colorful language.
In the last two years, Twitter has become a big hit in Mexico. When it was launched few in Mexico thought it would take off. But in 2009, it had 32,000 accounts. By January 2010, this had grown to 146,000 accounts. By June 2010, the number had jumped to 1,835,372 accounts.
As media analyst and academic Maria Elena Meneses says, 2012, the year of the next presidential election, will be the year of Twitter in Mexico.
03 Feb 11 | Index Index, minipost
Marbiel Hernandez, a distributor of El Diario and the evening paper PM was shot dead in Ciudad Juarez on 31 January. The suspected murderer, Ramses Robles Morales, is a member of drug trafficking group La Linea. He has been detained by police and admitted to receiving US$25o for carrying out the murder.
23 Nov 10 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Three men were charged yesterday with the attempted murder of a journalist, news agency El Universal reported. Two of the men are reported to be policemen, while the third man has been recently convicted on charges of theft.
The three were arrested by the Federal Police in Ecatepec, Mexico state, as a result of an investigation previously initiated by the FEADLE (Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression).
The two police officers were also charged with illegal possession of weapons. The name of the journalist remains undisclosed out of security reasons.
