Political Coverage

Mexico is a country where money can buy pretty much everything, from opinions to political favors, to law amendments that legalize what otherwise would still be done but considered illegal.

The small group of people (less than 10% of de Mexican population) who control most of the money (that is 37.5% of the national income, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in Mexico), pretty much determine what the media outlets will publish, cover, say and show in their different spaces. Whether it is TV, newspapers or radio.

It is really unfortunate the way major media outlets show, print or say only what serves the interests of that small group of people in power. Distortion of the reality and biased news is a standard practice in some newspapers of national circulation, or major TV news programs.

I was reading a book just a few days ago about how constant exposure to something or someone can make people feel attracted to it and how we tend to like people/faces we see more often than those we see less frequently. And I think in Mexico that is exactly what happens when the two major media outlets, owned by two of the richest people in our country, show the masses only what they want us to like and approve.

These constant exposure to certain faces and promotion of specific government programs shape the masses likes, dislikes, perceptions and deceptions about our politicians and their careers and present a distorted image of the reality our country lives in.

Just to cite an example, since 2006 the presidential candidate who alleges the presidency was stolen from him during the elections that year, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has been banned from the two major TV outlets in our country. No more interviews and air time was given to him at all during the past five years, unlike it happened to the other candidates who also ran for the presidency in the same elections.

In contrast, there is one man, from an opposite party, Enrique Peña Nieto, who was governor to one of the most (politically) important states in Mexico, who’s been favored all these years with a significant amount of TV air-time in these media outlets.

Everyone in Mexico knows he’s the favorite candidate to occupy the presidency in 2013. It is no secret that the ruling party will more likely lose their power to this particular man because every survey in the country shows Peña as the favorite candidate, by a significant percentage, over any other.

AMLO has traveled all over the country since his loss in 2006, visiting the main and largest cities as well as the smallest, worst communicated towns in Mexico. In an effort to build a stronger, better organized base of voters for his second candidacy in 2012. However, no major media outlet has ever mentioned this effort, talked about those pre-campaign acts, nor has shown images of the multitudes that crowd in those towns whenever he visits them.

Five years of absolutely no exposure in the major TV shows, in a country where people don’t read newspapers (and pretty much anything at all) is simply the best way to kill the possibilities of anyone who would hope for a fair competition.

For those, few, who also read leftist newspapers is easy to see how biased the information is. There is, in my opinion, no way you can get a fair, impartial image of the political picture in Mexico. It’s pretty obvious that you will get only radically opposite news or comments from the different media outlets.

I don’t think it will be possible, in many years to come, to see a fair, impartial coverage of the political affairs in our country. I simply don’t see how anyone, with the power to do so, of course, will be interested in changing the way things are today. They work quite well for the groups of interest who define and direct the present and future of our country, so why would they want to change it? After all in Mexico we have an old saying that describes very well the ways of the masses “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.”