Amidst the “information blackout” generated by drug trafficking violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, social network sites have transformed into a fundamental information source for citizens, but they cannot replace Mexican journalism, said veteran Mexican journalist Jacinto Rodríguez, who spoke recently at the University of Texas at Austin about journalism and violence.
Facebook and Twitter have come to be seen as new players in Mexican journalism, in light of the fact that many traditional media outlets have opted for silence in order to protect their workers from attacks by organized crime. Since 2000, 69 Mexican reporters have been killed because of organized crime. While Rodríguez acknowledged that journalism in Mexico today "doesn't exist without the work of social networks," he said they are not the "fundamental source" of information.
“It seems to be that social networks have a purpose right now, in the Mexican context, which is not exactly to substitute journalism," but to support it, Rodríguez, a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in an interview with the Knight Center.
In his view, Mexican journalism has not been able to take full advantage of social media and new technologies because it operates the same way it has for the last 20 or 30 years, which is why he said it is necessary to re-think journalism, especially now when it is at a crossroads because of . “What we are going through now is a great opportunity to see if what we have been doing is journalism or not," he said.
According to Darío Ramírez, director of the Mexican and Central American office of the human rights organization Artículo 19, the problems of the Mexican press stem from the fact that, as an institution, it has been largely absent from the political and economic transition that began in 2000 when the election of Vicente Fox as president put an end to 71 years of governance by the same party.
“If we are rethinking electoral institutions, State reforms, it seems to me that reform in the media in order to strengthen the plurality and diversity of ideas in the information spectrum is a fundamental way," Ramírez said in an interview with the Knight Center. “The television monopolies, the monopolies in new technologies like cell phones, the broadcast spectrum, have to be used in society's favor."
Ramírez called attention to a series of "bad habits" in Mexican journalism, such as the lack of codes of ethics and conduct, as well as the use of language, both written and visual, that can have negative consequences in the context of violence that permeates the country. For example, he cited the media's use of police and criminal slang that, in his opinion, is creating and validating a certain type of reality.
He said he believes it is necessary to analyze the role of the media in a society plagued by violence. “In societies a lot more democratic and advanced, like Spain and England, they re-thought the role of the media in light of violence from groups like the ETA or like the IRA in northern Ireland," which implies a new focus in how violence is covered, he said.
“What the serious press does in all the world is to have very clear guidelines that can help solve...certain problems that life and information are going to pose. Do I put this on the homepage, or don't I, will it benefit or not, provide information or not? These decisions today are very specious, made in accordance with personalities and interests," he said.
The media must stop "trivializing violence and commercializing blood," and instead create a unity among journalists to exercise pressure and thus stop being such "easy prey" for aggressors.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
