Mexico's media under scrutiny in documentary
Violence against journalists in Mexico is, sadly, nothing new and has been followed closely by the press and nonprofits alike for the last few years.
But “Voces Silenciadas” (Silenced Voices), a documentary film that was part of the Ambulante film festival here, broadens the debate around the persecution of journalists to encompass the bigger issues of media ownership and the relationship between the media and Mexico’s political powers.
Director Maria del Carmen De Lara doesn’t simply examine the dozens of unsolved cases of murdered and disappeared journalists in Mexico over the last couple of years –- she delves deeper, looking at media monopolies in Mexico and how those affect press freedom more broadly.
The film uses the departure of Carmen Aristegui , one of Mexico’s most prominent and respected journalists, from W Radio in January of last year as her starting point.
Aristegui’s “Hoy Por Hoy” morning news program had been on for five years and was one of the most listened to in Mexico when it was cut from the airwaves. Aristegui has since returned to radio news on a different network, but De Lara says her case shows how concentrated media ownership in Mexico has reduced the range of opinions in Mexico’s media and silence unwanted ones.
You can see Aristegui explain the circumstances behind her case in the video below, first shown in this La Plaza post.
In the documentary, De Lara makes her point mostly through a series of interviews with prominent Mexican journalists, analysts and writers, as well as media executives. Those interviews are interspersed with an audio recording of her repeatedly calling Televisa, part owner of W Radio, for an interview about Aristegui’s case — an interview that is eventually granted but sheds no new light on the case. Mexico’s giant Grupo Televisa multimedia company and Grupo Prisa, Spain’s largest media conglomerate, are joint owners of W Radio.
The format of the documentary is where it sags because the film is mainly a series of talking heads, sometimes accompanied by images of satirical cartoons snipped from Mexican newspapers. None of the visual material does justice to the urgency of the problems facing the press here in Mexico, which is a shame, because the issues of freedom of expression and violence against journalists here are serious.
The latter continues to hobble many media workers in Mexico, especially those who cover organized crime and the government, and has created a culture of self-censorship.
But De Lara’s interviewees do make a great case.
On leaving the cinema, I was disappointed as a viewer with the format of the documentary and didn’t feel I’d learned anything I didn’t already know. But on reflection, it occurred to me that foreign journalists were not the target audience of this film. The cinema is a good place to reach at least some average Mexican citizens, most of whom get their news from television. A massive 92% of Mexico’s television stations are owned by just two companies -– Televisa and TV Azteca -– which is De Lara’s point.
“I want the people to see the whole story that has been the struggle for a different kind of journalism in Mexico, a journalism that’s more diverse and inclusive,” she said in a telephone interview from Puebla, Mexico.
“That they understand what are the pressures for journalists, that the people understand another view of things, that they have other information, which this documentary has also done, for history.”
She also said she wants to show that, since the 1984 assassination of one of Mexico’s most prominent journalists, Manuel Buendia, Mexico “continues to have situations of impunity and situations that violate fundamental human rights.”
At the time of writing, there was no distribution deal signed to take the documentary to the United States, but De Lara was in conversations about possibly showing the film in London.
Image: A publicity poster for the documentary “Voces Silenciadas” (Silenced Voices). Credit: Ambulante.com.mx. Video: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times
Category: culture, human rights, journalism
Aristegui sirve a CNN, una empresa hipócrita con los periodistas latinoamericanos que trabajan en Atlanta. CNN abusa y maltrata a empleados hispanos.
CNN: MISTREATMENT AND DEATH OF EMPLOYEES
Salvadoran journalist Mario Vela passes away 12 days after being dismissed by CNN. The organization AGACAMT denounces the hostile attitude of CNN towards ill employees. Jose Ramon Cotti, Puerto Rican journalist dismissed by CNN, remains in a hospital after months of pain.
Atlanta (23 March 2009). – Salvadoran journalist Mario Vela passed away 12 days after CNN dismissed him. The company fired this worker despite the knowledge of the seriousness of his illness. Mr. Vela had been several months agonizing in Washington after his doctors declared there was no hope to save his life.
Mario Vela and his family underwent the pressure imposed by CNN in his last days when receiving a document in which their rights of denunciation were questioned and conditioned to the signing of a humiliating severance package.
CNN served notice to Mr. Vela via mail explaining that he no longer was to have his disability benefits and the medical insurance from the company.
Eva Ventín, president of AGACAMT, the Galician Association Against Moral Harassment at the Workplace, denounces the hypocritical attitude of CNN, that, after putting Mr. Vela in the street, sent the Vice-president of CNN Spanish, Cristopher Crommett, to this employee’s funeral to sing a song and to deliver a pitiful donation.
Relatives and friends of Mario Vela were themselves forced to organize a fundraising concert to collect money to pay for his medical treatment.
It is difficult to think that a powerful and multi-millionaire company like CNN, that in spite of the world’s economy crisis have announced economic gains, gets to mistreat its professionals and families”.
Mario Vela who passed away at age 34, was named by the mayor of Washington DC “the journalist of the year of 2007” recognition who was emphasized by his support to the Hispanic community and towards the under-privileged.
With more than 10 years of experience Mario Vela was news director of Mega Communications and Radio Capital 730 in DC. Vela worked for Channel 30 of Univisión and Radio World in Maryland.
AGACAMT wants to bring to the world’s attention other serious cases of labor harassment at CNN as in 2003 the local press of Atlanta related this network with the depression of a journalist who committed suicide. (see original editorial of the Mundo Hispanico about former news director Abel Dimant).
The complaints of labor abuses and irregularities had been communicated to Mr. Jim Walton, the President of CNN, but there are no answers neither solutions that protect the victims.
AGACAMT denounces that “this it is not the unique case of a journalist dismissed by CNN in a serious condition”. News anchor Jose Ramon Cotti remains in a hospital in Georgia after several months of pain.
The Puerto Rican journalist also was dismissed by CNN while on disability awaiting a delicate heart operation.
CNN brought Mr. Cotti and his wife to Atlanta from New York 9 years ago and the company has now totally forgotten this family, not even making a phone call to inquire about its employee’s condition after double bypass surgery and leg amputation and also after Mrs. Cotti’s hospitalization with health problems including stress related condition.
We communicated Mr. Walton of the above again with no responses.
This prestigious New York radio journalist, recipient of Several prizes including two awards from ACE. (Award of creative excellence) is just another one of the numerous victims of the dramatic crisis that shakes CNN.