Remaining Challenges

Despite the undeniable progress made toward more open media over the past decades, a number of challenges remain:

¦  TV coverage is now yellower than under the old regime, since unrestrained reporting on crime and scandals is used to gain ratings. The simple absence of censorship and repression does not automatically lead to media pluralism or independence in emerging democracies. Private media in emerging democracies tend to be politically conservative, establishment-oriented, and Vacuous.

¦  Television portrays the image of a blond, fair-skinned population quite unlike the physical appearance of most Mexicans. English travel writer Chris Taylor commented on the visual impression generated by Televisa: “Judging by the number of blondes that are on its shows, one could easily conclude that it was the Swedes, not the Spanish, who had colonized Mexico.”371

¦  The ownership of companies buying ads is highly concentrated, thus giving a small number of owners undue influence over media content. Telephone magnate Carlos Slim’s financial empire is estimated to control 40 percent of Mexico’s advertising. Media ownership itself is highly concentrated, with television settling into a duopoly. In 2007, Televisa and TV Azteca controlled 94 percent of the broadcast market.372

While the delinking of Televisa from the PRI and the founding of TV Azteca were initially seen as opening the way for critical reporting, it soon became apparent that a narrow range of vested interested interests set policy for the two networks. This became glaringly apparent as they used their media power to influence legislation concerning telecommunications. As media expert Enrique Sanchez Ruiz commented in 2005, “The media no longer contribute to enriching the democratic process in Mexico due to their highly concentrated ownership and control.”373

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a wide variety of actors, such as drug traffickers, other organized criminal groups, and the henchmen of crooked politicians, have attempted to silence those whose messages are unwelcome. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least twenty-one reporters in Mexico were killed between 2000 and 2008. Such violence has made it virtually impossible to report on drug trafficking in northern Mexico. After a 2006 grenade and gunfire attack on the newsroom of El Manana in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, its editor Ramon Cantu lamented:

Even if we find out why, I’m not sure we would print it. We live here under a code of selfcensorship, and even under those rules we’re vulnerable. Nuevo Laredo continues to be the battleground for drug cartels. And reporters continue to get caught in the crossfire.374