The crisis of violence against the press has an explanation that should be the starting point for the search for institutional solutions: of having been a visible/invisible sector of the system/regime and part of the construction apparatus of the PRI State ideology, the media They never considered a process of transition to relative autonomy based on economic support from society and not from the government.
The press began to separate itself from government control in 1968 with the conquest of independent spaces for information and criticism, especially in the Excelsior newspaper of Julio Scherer García and the newspaper El Día of the former communist and progressive PRI member Enrique Ramírez y Ramírez.
However, the press conquered spaces for dissemination and opinion, but never bothered to build sources of social financing other than advertising income from public offices. In this context, the press will never be independent as long as it continues to live off the advertising revenue of governments and the parties in power.
The political transition driven by the systemic crisis of 1968 encountered the absence of a civil society with the capacity to finance critical communication and was limited to the existence of a few progressive positions within the regime that understood the democratic need for an independent press. of the system/regime/State.
The PAN and Morenoite opposition in power used the critical spaces of the media, but once in institutional positions they did not worry about building mechanisms for financing public opinion as spaces for the expression of democracy. Even the INE of Lorenzo Córdova Vianello and Ciro Murayama Rendón have built the control mechanisms of the media for the benefit of their own popularity and not for the exercise of criticism as an instrument of democratic politicization of society.
The only way to strengthen the media as spaces for democratization lies in the financing of their existence through direct contributions from society. Faced with harassment from President Trump, The New York Times and The Washington Post resorted to subscriptions for their digital models and replaced the collapse of advertising from companies linked to the power structure.
The failure of the institutional and legislative mechanisms for the protection of journalists is explained by the fact that public offices are not convinced to defend and protect those who criticize them, giving the status of doctrine to President López Portillo’s pronouncement that he would not give money from the budget to finance media that criticized him.
The society that does not depend on the State or the parties is very insistent in demanding the existence of media outlets that criticize the malfunctioning of the system/regime, but it has not been able to buy subscriptions to finance criticism. The media, in turn, have not established channels for the integration of interests with the society that demands independent information, and even less have they been open to the sale of shareholding percentages without influence on editorial policy so that society becomes involved in the publication life.
The media appear as private businesses of business consortiums that benefit families and their high standards of living, abandoning a sensible salary policy and mechanisms to protect the lives of their employees. Of fifteen media outlets that are published in Mexico City and have circulation throughout the republic, only one is run by a female journalist, although she modified her public shareholding structure to concentration in a few hands. And the State has been incapable of promoting the construction of media outlets run by journalists and not businessmen.
The journalistic model of dependency on the government transitioned to a critical press without strengthening its financial structure to achieve autonomy from public and private interests that have taken advantage of the lack of journalistic media companies.
Without a change in its income structure, the press will continue to depend on interested subsidies from the real powers of the republic.
Policy for dummies: Politics feeds on free information.
Political Indicator joins the atmosphere of presidential succession 2024. Sign up for the WhatsApp network of the weekly Palacio Nacional 2024 digital magazine: Ana Karina Sánchez López, [email protected] WhatsApp: 55-1058-6460 and consult www.indicadorpolitico.mx
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