Firing Back at Medina Mora

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora stirred up some trouble when he (timidly) suggested that Mexico's journalists should be more responsible in their coverage of organized crime, the implication being that they allow themselves to be used by drug gangs by jumping all over the most sensational crimes of the day. I don't think officials chiding journalists publicly --as opposed to a discreet phone call to the editor of a specific paper-- is a good idea, although a discreet phone call wouldn't have worked because Medina Mora was addressing the media at large. I also think it'd be nice if Calderón's team did a better job of investigating crimes against journalists before criticizing their work. Furthermore, it's impossible not be at least a little sensational in covering the Mexican drug trade, because so many of the newsworthy episodes are eye-catching. For all those reasons, a certain amount of umbrage is understandable and warranted.

At the same time, I think this response from Milenio's Carlos Marín offers a revealing illustration of the Mexican media's self-image, which in my mind is unnecessarily combative:

Neither the attorney general nor the criminals understand that the primary responsibility of the journalists is with their readers, listeners, or viewers, who value the information and opinion, and that that [the journalists'] essential role is getting to the guts of the origins of power in and out of the institutions.

I'd say that informing the public is far more important than determining the origins of power. That goal often includes looking for the powerful forces operating behind the scenes, but it often doesn't. The fact that a successful Mexican journalist thinks that uncovering a hidden hand moving the country is more important than merely informing his readers helps explain why in Mexico conspiracy theories often have more currency than the plain, simple, boring truth, as supported by the evidence.