Most news outlets in Mexico rely heavily on public advertising; few would survive without it. That dependence gives officials leverage to push their owners to run favorable stories and stop others from seeing the light of day. Editors and reporters say officials routinely shape the news, telling outlets what they should or should not report.
“The government has its media darlings who act as spokespeople,” said Rafael Hernández, a congressman with the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. “They reward them with substantial advertising contracts, and they asphyxiate and punish those critical voices who aren’t replicating the official message.”
The ads, while intended to inform people about government services, are often used to trumpet officials’ own interests.
The long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party pioneered the use of ad spending to co-opt the news media, but the practice continued after the National Action Party won the presidency in 2000. Mr. Peña Nieto promised to control the ad spending when he first took office, but he has ended up outspending his predecessors.
The bill pending in Congress is a response to a Supreme Court ruling last year that ordered lawmakers to regulate the flow of government money so that it is distributed in an unbiased way. The court sided with Article 19, a free-expression group that sued the government over its ad-spending practices, and told lawmakers to pass legislation by the end of this month.
Congress may meet that deadline, but advocates say the measure would do nothing to fix the problem the court identified: Free expression suffers when the government can financially reward or punish news outlets.
Newsletter Sign Up
Continue reading the main story
Thank you for subscribing.
An error has occurred. Please try again later.
You are already subscribed to this email.
Under the bill, the interior secretary would evaluate federal advertising campaigns under the principles of “efficiency, economy, transparency and honesty.” Agencies would also report to the secretary on how their advertising budgets are spent.
Critics say the bill is notable for what it lacks: specific regulations to promote equitable ad spending and spending limits, and enforcement powers to ensure the rules are followed. Instead, they argue, it institutionalizes discretionary public advertising.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
“The court was not asking for the formalizing of the status quo — they demanded a change,” said Jan Jarab, the Mexico representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Instead, he said, the bill legalizes “what the court itself called indirect restriction of free expression.”
Supporters of the legislation say it addresses the court’s concerns while giving the government a means to promote its efforts. Setting a spending cap would be counterproductive, they say, because it would encourage agencies to spend up to the limit.
“The government can and should spend less than any fixed percentage — that is why it’s always better to have a flexible regime,” Arturo Huicochea, a congressman with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, said last week.
The Peña Nieto administration spent more than twice its budget in 2016 on public-service ads, according to Fundar, a transparency group that examines government data. Last year, the administration spent as much on advertising, about $500 million, as it did to support students in its main scholarship program for public universities.
For all that spending, Mr. Peña Nieto’s approval ratings are among the lowest since pollsters began taking the measure in the 1980s, a reflection of widespread disgust with official corruption. And as the July 1 presidential election approaches, his handpicked candidate, José Antonio Meade, is in third place.
Continue reading the main story
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/americas/mexico-government-advertising-enrique-pena-nieto.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.