24 Sep 10 | Uncategorized
Mexico continues to be an important destination for press freedom organisations. The Inter American Press Association and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists visited Mexico this week to promote legal changes on the prosecution of crimes against journalists, and a protection plan for journalists under threat, similar to the one implemented in Colombia in early 2000. Under current law, murder cases are presided over by provincial authorities, and international groups have been pushing for crimes against journalists to be brought under the federal government´s control. President Felipe Calderon told both groups he will put in place a government sanctioned plan to protect journalists, which will include early warning alerts, extension of the statute of limitations for crimes against journalists, a programme to transfer threatened journalists to other residences, police protection for threatened reporters, and establishment of a government-media group that would identify motives behind attacks on the press.
IAPA, meanwhile, gave a vote of confidence to Calderón’s protection plan, but warned about a lack of resources for putting the plan into action.”There aren’t necessary resources to cover the magnitude of the problem,” the IAPA Vice President, Gonzalo Marroquín.
The group held a public meeting at Casa Lamm, a grand old house located in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City, where editors from Ciudad Juarez, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Tijuana and Zacatecas told the meeting that they practiced self censorship. Some of the editors were told the group that they would not accept government protection. “How can we ask the government to protect us if they cant protect themselves” Ismael Bojorquez, editor of Rio Doce, Sinaloa asked rethorically .”They can’t protect themselves,” he added, mentioning that a number of state government officials have been killed in Sinaloa.
The debate over protection measures for journalists in Mexico will continue, especially because journalists in the provincial cities, called states in Mexico, need to understand how these measures will work.
Ana Arana is Director of the Fundación Mexicana de Periodismo de Investigación
23 Sep 10 | News and features
Following Mexican newspaper El Diario’s front-page appeal this week, Ana Arana explains why journalists in Mexico remain split over whether to negotiate with drug cartels
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23 Sep 10 | Americas, Mexico
“What do you want from us?”, El Diario de Juarez asked the two drug cartels fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez, one of the most important cities on the US-Mexico border. The front page editorial was a bold public display of the type of questions provincial journalists ask themselves every day when they are attacked by drug cartels. El Diario is the second largest newspaper in this border town, which was an industrial megacity, until it was brought to a halt by the drug war three years ago. The daily newspaper’s editorial came after two of its intern photographers were shot by gunmen, the attack left one dead and the other wounded. The attack was confusing as the two young journalists had recently started their positions. It was the second murder of a journalist working for El Diario in the last two years.
The editorial sparked a diatribe from the Mexican government. Government spokesman Alejandro Poire attacked the newspaper for promoting illegal accords with organised crime.
To make matters worse for the El Diario, it was fooled on Monday by an impostor pretending to be Cesar Nava, the head of the ruling Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN), who said he supported negotiating an end to violence with organised crime.
In Mexico, as in most of Latin America, most of the attacks against journalists occur in provincial cities, where they often go unpunished. Regional media organisations are often small, because they are not as powerful as the national media they are attacked with impunity. There is often an underlying mistrust between these two types of media — the provincial news outlets pay lower salaries and their journalists get less training. In some cases journalists hold multiple jobs, which can pose conflicts of interest.
Until recently, the divide between the Mexican provincial press and the press in the Distrito Federal, as Mexico’s capital city is called, was huge. Attacks against journalists in Mexico have been common for more than 20 years ago, but they often occurred on border cities. Although the divide has narrowed recently — especially since the kidnapping of four journalists including a national Televisa cameraman last July — there is still a significant gap.
In recent interviews I have held with provincial editors, they say they still fee “abandoned” by their colleagues in Mexico City. “Some of our colleagues in [the city] feel we are giving in too quickly,” said one editor in Veracruz, “but the truth is they do not know the dangers we face.” Carlos Marin, of the national daily Milenio, scalded El Diario in a column yesterday, calling for the newspaper to close its doors, rather than capitulate before organised crime. Some Mexico City based editors are more willing to understand the plight of the provincial media. Denise Maerker, a columnist and Televisa presenter, said that El Diario de Juarez’s question to drug cartels last week was simply a public display of what is happening across Mexico. In her column in yesterday’s El Universal, she said that these pacts have been going on silently in the country. “Let’s not leave them alone”, she implored.
The issue underlying the entire debate over El Diario’s decision is the reality that more people in Mexico are questioning the drug war and are debating whether Mexico should negotiate with the drug cartels.
17 Sep 10 | Uncategorized
A battle is brewing between two Mexican media giants: Grupo Reforma and the television network Televisa. This might seem to be a debate about ethics, but it is not what it appears to be.
About a week ago, Televisa, the second largest media group in Latin America, launched a series of news stories describing how Grupo Reforma, one of Mexico’s most respected newspaper empires, published advertisements for sex services which contributed to the trafficking of women in Mexico. The stories were broadcast on Televisa’s nightly programme, which has the highest ratings in the country — 40 million viewers, according to some media commentators. The issue of publishing sex ads in the national media is an ethical debate that should probably be brought to the fore in Mexico. According to the International Organisation for Migration, Mexico has a serious problem with woman-trafficking networks, which are run by drug-trafficking groups. But the odd thing about the Televisa story is that it never mentioned the other half a dozen Mexican tabloids which publish nude centrefolds in the style of British tabloids, as well as pages of “sex for hire” ads, which are often more graphic than those found in Reforma.
Since the first stories appeared, the question of what lies behind the media feud has been swirling around Mexico. The most credible explanation, mentioned by a number of columnists, is that the fight started when Reforma published a business story accusing Televisa of receiving special government treatment in the allocation of a lucrative mobile phone contract with communications giant Nextel. A former telecommunications government official also claimed that Televisa was given a good deal. The contract gave Televisa and Nextel the right to enter so-called “quadruple play”, which combines broadband Internet access, television and telephone, with wireless service provisions, at a price 28 times less than the expected cost, according to some news accounts.
In response to the accusation, Televisa demanded that Reforma publish a lengthy letter, which the newspaper refused to do. And so the battle began.
This kind of row is what gets in the way of media collaboration on issues such as press freedom. Recently, Televisa and other media executives sat down for the first time to discuss joint measures to protect the press in Mexico. Reforma, however, did not participate in the meetings — one of its executives said it did not like to mix with other news media executives. The Reforma conglomerate is known for revolutionising Mexican media in the 1990s when it launched its newspaper, also called Reforma, in Mexico City. The paper was the first to include all political views at a time when subversion of the press by those in power was common. Since those heady days, Reforma has remained the centre right daily that is read mostly by Mexican elites. Like Reforma’s two other dailies, El Norte, in the industrial city of Monterrey, and Mural, in the city of Guadalajara, the newspaper is known for strict editorial guidelines.
Reforma´s publisher, Junco de la Vega, left Mexico two years ago for Austin, Texas, after the powerful Gulf Cartel, which has control of the east coast of Mexico, sent the newspaper a video detailing the daily routine of de la Vega’s entire family. Junco’s forced exit was never publicised by the other news media, and this apparent lack of sensitivity for attacks on other colleagues was a prelude to the dangerous situation now facing the entire media community in Mexico. Even de la Vega´s decision to abandon the country has been facetiously disparaged in some columns, which insinuate that de la Vega is a coward for leaving. Let’s hope this latest spat does not have a negative impact on recent advancements in co-operation shown by the media outlets facing attacks by drug cartels.
However, the way in which business interests can blindside the debate in Mexico is worrying. The stakes are high, nevertheless. Nextel is currently working on expanding its nationwide 3G wireless networks in Mexico. Televisa hopes to create an innovative communication platform by adding Nextel’s wireless and broadband services to its existing portfolio of pay-TV services, offering market-leading content and multiple distribution channels. Televisa controls 70 percent of the pay-TV market.
