Press in Mexico, between criminal violence, owners’ interests and attacks from those in power: RSF

MEXICO CITY (apro).- The Mexican press remains trapped between the violence of criminal groups, the interests of its owners and the attacks of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which places the country in 121st place out of 180 in the classification global press freedom prepared by the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

In its annual report on the state of press freedom around the globe – published just a week after the murder of journalist Roberto Carlos Figueroa in Coajomulco, Morelos – RSF stressed that Mexico “remains one of the most dangerous and “deadliest places in the world for journalists,” and placed it between Kyrgyzstan and Lesotho, just above the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and below Mali.

According to the organization, the violence suffered by the union has not improved, given that “President López Obrador has not yet undertaken any of the necessary reforms to put a stop to the violence and impunity that have been established in the country”; He recalled that “since 2000, nearly 150 journalists have been murdered and 28 have disappeared in Mexico.”

The report lamented that both López Obrador and other “prominent figures of the State” often attack the media with “rhetoric that is as violent as it is stigmatizing,” associating them with the opposition. The organization denounced the exercise known as the “who’s who of lies,” which Elizabeth García Vilchis stars in every Wednesday at the president’s morning conference, and which “attempts to discredit the press.”

RSF also pointed out that there is a significant concentration in the media sector, with giants such as Televisa, Telmex or the Mexican Editorial Organization (OEM) that control significant parts of the press and telecommunications sectors. “This situation, among others, causes more and more independent journalists to publish their own content on social networks,” he observed.

And he added that the economic crisis derived from the covid-19 pandemic impacted the press, forcing journalists to “seek alternative sources of income, striving, at the same time, to maintain their freelance activity.”