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New
Challenges for the Media In México
By Fernando Mejía
The
election of Vicente Fox to the presidency in July, 2000 marked
a watershed in Mexican politics, putting an end to 71 years
of dominance by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)
and to Mexico as a one-party state.
Mexican media played
a double role in this transition, reporting on events as they
happened and being themselves subject to the changes.
The
one-party state that eventually emerged from the Mexican Revolution
was a corporativist state, expanding its control over the
social and economic organization of society until it became
the supreme arbiter of every conflict of interest and the
engine for economic development. In exchange for their acceptance
and subordination to the party and the state, the different
sectors of society were guaranteed participation in the benefits
of economic development.
The media also
participated in this subordination to the party in power.
The government ensured the media's compliance through concessions,
credits, preferences and exemptions, as well as through government
advertising and subsidies doled out to the individual outlets
and through the salaries and benefits granted to journalists.
There developed a complicity between media and state that
it was in neither's interest to break.
The
"New" Mexican Journalism
During the last 20 years, the Mexican media have become more
open, critical and independent. The newspapers started the
march toward autonomy after the destruction of the daily Excélsior
by the Echeverría (1970-1976) government in 1976. Although
ultimately successful in neutralizing Excélsior as
a critic of his administration, Luis Echeverría paid
a high price in legitimacy, so much so that his successor,
José López Portillo (1976-1982) was not able
to wield the same mechanisms of control against emerging independent
publications such as Proceso and Unomásuno. In small
but significant steps, the Mexican press was on the road to
independence.
For radio and television,
progress was more gradual. As recently as the 1988 elections,
opposition parties practically did not exist for the broadcast
media. According to the Instituto Federal de Elecciones, a
government watchdog agency, broadcasters devoted 83.1 percent
of their coverage to the ruling PRI in that year, but only
3.1 percent to the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and
1.6 percent to the Frente Democrático Nacional (FDN).
In spite of that, the opposition garnered half the votes.
The 1994 elections
were relatively free; there was true competition but still
no parity. The electronic media showed marked favoritism for
the official party. They dedicated 41 percent of the coverage
to the PRI, 17.8 percent to the PAN, and 18.7 percent to the
Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD).
In
October, 1999, the president of the National Chamber of the
Radio and Television Industry (CIRT), Joaquín Vargas,
made a commitment to provide timely and objective information
about the political races and the platforms of each of the
parties. This attitude, said the president of the CIRT, was
not only a response to popular demand, but also an indispensable
component of fair elections.
In spite of this,
the broadcast media in some states and regions could not escape
the pressures of local groups that favored the PRI. According
to IFE, until February 22, the PRI had benefited from 31.9
percent of the coverage, the Alliance for Change had 28.2
percent and the Alliance for Mexico 25.9 percent. IFE acknowledged,
however, that in areas where the opposition governed the state,
coverage tended to favor it.
Notwithstanding
the disconnect between some media and the ideal of open, fair
and transparent dissemination of information, the July 2000
elections went forward relatively smoothly and resulted in
a clean victory by one of the parties in the opposition.
From
beginning to end, radio and television found themselves in
constant competition and as a result provided complete coverage
of the electoral process.
The watchdog function
- fending off possible fraud and irregularities - and the
informative function - keeping the audience abreast of exit
polls and preliminary results - blended seamlessly. Citizens
watched on television the first great political change in
Mexico accomplished without violence or bloodshed.
July 2000 marked
the end of a long political transition in Mexico. It had its
start in 1968, and highlights in the political reform of 1977
and the elections in the northern states in 1988 and 1997.
The next step is the construction of a new, more balanced,
transparent and democratic political system.
This
is the challenge for the communications media in Mexico: to
strengthen their role as watchdogs and providers of information
while smoothing their integration to the emerging Mexican
democratic process.
Fernando Mejía es reportero de Milenio de la Ciudad
de México
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