Mexican newspapers reforming

All news has an agenda. Recently in Mexico, that agenda has begun to change.

According to… All news has an agenda. Recently in Mexico, that agenda has begun to change.

According to a professor from the University of Miami in a lecture Monday afternoon titled “Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico,” Mexican news coverage has recently shifted to serve the people rather than the state.

Professor Sallie Hughes’s lecture in Posvar Hall and her book of the same name focused primarily on Mexican journalists’ move toward higher levels of civic involvement.

“A change in civic journalism has enabled a different type of citizen participation,” Hughes said.

Hughes quoted Robert Rock, the executive vice president of the Mexican paper El Excelsior, explaining the previous role of the newspaper industry.

“Old-style journalists believed that it was the role of the paper to help the state,” she quoted.

Through what Hughes referred to as “passive, subservient journalism,” Mexican media traditionally offered unquestioning support of the reigning regime.

Hughes credited the recent break from passive reporting in Mexico to a combination of “environmental factors” and the entrance of reporters from different backgrounds.

“Such diversity,” Hughes said, “allowed some journalists to become change agents, [able] to affect how the news came out was produced.”

Still, the change has been recent.

“It wasn’t until 1997 that all these media changes occurred, and that is why I argue that organizational changes in journalism were the most important factors in leading the way toward democratization in Mexico,” Hughes said.

Ultimately, Hughes believes that the Mexican news media has taken strides toward civic journalism and toward “presenting more diverse perspectives on government through assertiveness in reporting and autonomy [from government influence].”

It is such advancements in the news media that she believes will foster a commitment among the Mexican people toward more democratic, informed involvement in their government.