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I went to a lecture a few weeks back at Annenberg on "What's with the LA Times." I sometimes wonder the same thing, but remain a loyal subscriber. Yet the thing that galls me most is their Mexico coverage.
Not their Mexico coverage per se, but that they file it all under: "Mexico Under Siege." It is irresponsible at best; at worst, it is fear-mongering "brown" journalism. It would be as if the LA Times reported only from gangland LA to suffice as the coverage of the city and titled it "LA Under Siege." It is an inaccurate and twisted perspective on a far more complex issue. By broadly painting Mexico under the "Under Siege" title, it creates the impression that Mexico is some-how a failed state. It's not (see: former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda's, What's Spanish for Quagmire?). Such lurid headlines of narco-border violence obscure the relative safety felt throughout the whole of the country.
I have been to Mexico half-a-dozen times, and have traveled from its northern border all the way through its southerly line. In addition, I have done journalist work in Tijuana, a city that the press loves to chronicle with lurid tales of narco-violence. I always feel more unsafe at the Greyhound bus stations that I use to head south than any points beyond the border, and I often feel mas seguridad en Mexico than fair Los Angeles.
However, there is no need to rely on anecdotal evidence. The reality is that Mexico City's homicide rate is on par with Los Angeles and a third of the rate of my fair home, Washington DC.
I planned to tell them all this, but the conversation never came close. Instead I was reminded that newspapers are necrophiliacs. It seems all they care about is death, for all they talked about was their new homicide grid for Los Angeles. They have been collecting death data and they are proud to share it.
After the lecture I cornered an editor to toss my caja de jabon (soapbox) at his head. I argued that while the LA Times offers decent and nuanced coverage of Mexico, to put it all under "Mexico Under Siege" tars its coverage and skews the more nuanced reporting that it conducts. He noted that similar sentiments had been echoed even in his newsroom.
While Mexico indeed needs to carry out considerably more public diplomacy to convince its gringo neighbor to the north that the context of the "Mexico Under Siege" mentality is inaccurate, the sensationalist headlines surely don't help the matter. As a venerable paper of record, the LA Times should understand this better than most; yet its quest to gain Pulitzers at the sake of sensationalism and speciousness speaks to the state of the LA Times as much as it does to the state of Mexico.
The real Mexico (photo by Paul Rockower)
Paul Rockower is the Communications Chair for the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars (APDS). He is also a research associate for USC Professor Pamela Starr's US-Mexico Network, a USC-sponsored project to connect Mexican and US academics through public diplomacy.
This op-ed is the first of a newly initiated "Neon PD" project between Neon Tommy and the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars (APDS).
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