El Periodismo más allá de las Fronteras

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Mexico Institute

JOURNALISM ACROSS THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

Edited by

Rossana Fuentes-Berain

Andrew D. Seleeand Heidy Servin-Baez

Writing Beyond Boundaries

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

EN ESPA NOL ˜



Writing Beyond Boundaries Journalism Across the U.S.-Mexico Border

El Periodismo Más Allá de las FronterasMéxico y Estados Unidos

The Woodrow Wilson Center

and Foreign Affairs en Español

Edited by / Compilado por

Rossana Fuentes-Beraín

Andrew Selee

Heidy Servin-Baez



WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS

LEE H. HAMILTON, DIRECTOR

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair; David A. Metzner, Vice Chair. Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin,

Archivist of the United States; Bruce Cole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services; Condoleezza Rice, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution;

Margaret Spellings, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education. Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Robert B. Cook,

Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Charles L. Glazer, Tamala L. Longaberger

WILSON COUNCIL

Bruce S. Gelb, President. Elias F. Aburdene, Jennifer Acker, Charles S. Ackerman, B.B. Andersen, Russell Anmuth, Cyrus A. Ansary, Lawrence

E. Bathgate II, David H. Bass, Tom Beddow, Theresa Behrendt, John Beinecke, Joseph C. Bell, Steven Alan Bennett, Stuart Bernstein, Rudy

Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Donald A. Brown, Melva Bucksbaum, Richard I . Burnham, Nicola L. Caiola, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, Melvin

Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., David M. Crawford, Jr., Michael D. DiGiacomo, Sam Donaldson, Beth Dozoretz, Elizabeth Dubin, F. SamuelEberts III, I. Steven Edelson, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Susan R. Farber, A. Huda Farouki, Julie Finley, Michael Fleming, Joseph H. Flom,

John H. Foster, Charles Fox, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, John H. French, II, Morton Funger, Gregory M. Gallo, Chris G.

Gardiner, Bernard S. Gewirz, Alma Gildenhorn, David F. Girard-diCarlo, Michael B. Goldberg, Roy M. Goodman, Gretchen Meister Gorog,

William E. Grayson, Ronald Greenberg, Raymond A. Guenter, Cheryl F. Halpern, Edward L. Hardin, Jr., John L. Howard, Osagie O. Imasogie,

Darrell E. Issa, Benjamin Jacobs, Jerry Jasinowski, Brenda LaGrange Johnson, Shelly Kamins, James M. Kaufman, Edward W. Kelley, Jr.,

Anastasia D. Kelly, Christopher J. Kennan, Willem Kooyker, Steven Kotler, Markos Kounalakis, William H. Kremer, Daniel Lamaute, James

Langdon, Raymond Learsy, Dennis A. LeVett, Francine Gordon Levinson, Harold O. Levy, Frederic V. Malek, David S. Mandel, Jeffrey A. Marcus,

John Mason, Jay Mazur, Robert McCarthy, Linda McCausland, Stephen G. McConahey, Donald F. McLellan, Charles McVean, J. Kenneth

Menges, Jr., Kathryn Mosbacher, Jeremiah L. Murphy, Martha T. Muse, John E. Osborn, Paul Hae Park, Gerald L. Parsky, Jeanne L. Phillips,

Michael J. Polenske, Donald Robert Quartel, Jr., Bruce Rattner, Thomas R. Reedy, Larry D. Richman, Carlyn Ring, Edwin Robbins, Juan A.

Sabater, Roger Sant, Timothy R. Scully, J. Michael Shepherd, George P. Shultz, Raja W. Sidawi, Kenneth Siegel, Ron Silver, William A.

Slaughter, James H. Small, Shawn Smeallie, Gordon V. Smith, Thomas F. Stephenson, John Sitilides, Norman Kline Tiefel, Mark C. Treanor,Anthony G. Viscogliosi, Christine M. Warnke, Ruth Westheimer, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr., Paul Martin Wolff,

Joseph Zappala, Richard S. Ziman, Nancy M. Zirkin

ABOUT THE CENTER

The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress

established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruit-

ful relationship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees.

In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, supported financially by annual appropriations

from Congress, and by the contributions of foundations, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publi-

cations and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees,

advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center.

© 2005 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DCwww.wilsoncenter.org

Cover Illustration: Bruno Budrovic © Images.com/CORBIS



ABREVIATIONS/ABREVIACIONES

PROLOGUE/PRÓLOGOAlejandro Junco de la Vega, Reforma/El Norte

INTRODUCTION/INTRODUCCIÓN: Writing Across Borders

Andrew Selee and Heidy Servin-Baez, Woodrow Wilson Center

Section I: Key Themes in Cross-Border Journalism/Temas en el

Periodismo a través de la Fronteras

Rossana Fuentes-Beraín, Foreign Affairs en Español “Una Historía Incompleta”*

Roderic Ai Camp, Claremont-McKenna College“The Role of the Press”

Philip Bennett,The Washington Post “Getting Ahead of the Curve”

Section II: Reporting Politics Across the Border/La Cobertura

Política a través de la Frontera

Dolia Estévez, Radio Monitor/Poder “The Challenge of Being a Foreign Reporter”

Mary Beth Sheridan, The Washington Post

“Beyond Black and White”

Pascal Beltrán-del-Río, El Universal/La Revista“Atención Desigual”*

Jerry Kammer, Copley News Service

“Towards Fair and Honest Reporting”

José Carreño, El Universal “Hacia la Imparcialidad y la Verdad”*

Section III: Understanding Each Other’s Society/

El Entendimiento de Nuestras SociedadesAlfredo Corchado, Dallas Morning News“Constructing Identities: La Verdad Siempre es Mas o Menos”

Jim Cason, La Jornada“Writing in Shades of Gray”

Sandra Dibble, San Diego Union-Tribune “The Stories that Whisper”

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15

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CONTENTS / ÍNDICE



Maria Martin, Gracias Vida Production

“Journalism Sin Fronteras”Alejandro Moreno, Reforma“Pushing and Pulling: Tracking the Dynamics of Public

Opinion in Mexico”

Section IV: Covering the Transnational Mexican Community

/La cobertura periodística sobre la Comunidad

Mexicana Transnacional

Michael Jones-Correa, Cornell University

“Three Misperceptions About Immigration”

Armando Guzmán, TV Azteca“Mis Aventuras Reportandole a Dos Paises”*

Enrique Gómez, AM León“Lazos y Oportunidades”*

S. Lynne Walker, Copley News Service

“Covering Mexico in the Heartland of the United States”

J. Jesús Lemus Barajas, La Voz de Michoacán“Los Triunfadores en la Vida”*

CONTRIBUTORS/AUTORES

* Chapters in Spanish/Capítulos en Español

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The saddest of stories end, more often than not, with two words: “if only.”

The story of the relationship between Mexico and the USA is such a tale. It isa tale of lost opportunities. It is a tale of two countries that continue for the mostpart to focus on what is wrong, while paying altogether too little attention to thequestion of what—specifically—we might do to make things right.

The story of what is wrong plays itself out once more with each day’s fresh edi-tion of newspaper. That is not to say that there has not been progress. Whether you are in Washington DC or Mexico City, when you open your newspaper today, you will find more stories about the country on the other side of the bor-der than you would have ten years ago.

But what do those stories cover? For the most part, it will simply be one of the

usual suspects: immigration, drugs, trade, and corruption. How often will youread a story that looks outside those familiar beats?

Instead of exploring new ideas, emerging trends, or fresh perspectives on oldproblems, writers sustain old stereotypes: Americans read that Mexico is lawlessand corrupt; its people pour across the border creating a vast and daily-growingrange of social and economic problems.

It would perhaps come as a surprise to many in America to learn that legalimmigrants in fact outnumber undocumented immigrants by two-to-one, or that85% of all Latinos living in the US under the age of 18 are native-born.

Meanwhile we here in Mexico sustain an image of the United States that goeslittle beyond what the world knows of Washington and Hollywood.

For those of us who work in the newspaper world, the challenge is simple andclear: we need to avoid the black and white caricatures and flesh out the picture. Itis tempting to take the easy road. Simple black and white stories make a good frontpage; more subtle stories that take longer to tell are less likely to grab the reader.

But we can do better. We know that we make progress when we expand theparameters of the debate, and when we encourage people to look with fresheyes at an issue, and to weigh an argument with the benefit of new and detailedinformation.

For our own part, the newspapers in Grupo Reforma are making a determinedeffort to remake journalism in our country. We try to present stories that explain

why it is that things are the way they are, and then carry the debate forward byasking what it might take to move on: how might we improve things? What canwe learn from the experience of others? How can we switch from the abstractwhat to the concrete how ?

Inevitably the relationship between Mexico and the United States is an intrin-sic aspect of those discussions. That relationship is unlikely to be truly productiveuntil we come to know much more about each other.

vWriting Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border

PROLOGUEAlejandro Junco de la Vega,

Reforma/El Norte



This publication represents a positive step in that direction. I wholeheartedlyendorse it.



Journalists play an essential role in interpreting the changes taking place both athome and abroad. They are, in very real ways, the “eyes and ears” of citizens, arole that is even more important in international affairs, since most people lackdirect access to information about events occurring in other countries. Journalistsprovide a vital bridge to ideas across borders, they interpret events in other coun-tries to home audiences, and, indirectly, they help set an agenda for what citizensknow and think about other countries. Nonetheless, despite the important rolethat journalists play, they have been given insufficient attention in most studies of international relations.

If journalists are important actors in international affairs in general, they areeven more so in the relationship between Mexico and the United States, two

countries that have undergone a rapid process of integration over the past twenty-five years. The number of Mexicans living in the United States has almost quintu-pled, from 2.2 million in 1980 to around 10.6 million in 2004. It is almost impos-sible to find a municipality in Mexico or a county in the United States that has notbeen touched by migration. At the same time, there may be as many as a millionAmericans living in Mexico, the largest U.S.community abroad. In ten years, tradebetween the two countries tripled from $83billion a year in 1993 to $244 billion in2003. Millions of citizens in the two coun-

tries depend directly or indirectly on theseeconomic interactions. In addition, the bor-der region has grown to over ten millionpeople, who share common environmental,health, and economic challenges.

This rapidly evolving relationshiprequires a new kind of cross-border journal-ism, one that gives the audience a deeper understanding of the context of currentevents across the border; covers nontraditional stories about social, cultural, andpolitical changes taken place within the other country; and tells the full story of Mexicans living in the United States, not just as heroes or victims, but as the sub-

jects of complex transformations taking place in both countries. Fortunately, jour-nalists in both countries have risen to the challenge.They have found ways to writemore nuanced stories about each other, and discovered new stories that need to betold with a different voice. They have learned to cover the border not only as adividing line but also as a seam that ties together people on each side. This newcoverage is driven by the emergence of a new brand of journalists who know thetwo countries well, by a changing audience that demands different kinds of cover-

1Writing Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border

INTRODUCTIONAndrew Selee and Heidy Servin-Baez,

Woodrow Wilson Center

This rapidly evolving relationship requires anew kind of cross-border journalism, one that gives the audience a deeper under-standing of the context of current events

across the border; covers nontraditionalstories about social, cultural, and politicalchanges taken place within the other country; and tells the full story of Mexicans livingin the United States.



age about the other country, by new alliances between media companies in the twocountries, and by new technologies that allow for a rapid exchange of information.

However, the relationship is evolving even faster than the media can keep upwith. Scarce resources and the pressures of publishing often impose limits on jour-nalists’ creativity. Few television companies, radio stations, newspapers, or maga-zines have resources assigned to long-term investigative reporting about the other country. Despite journalists’ interest in reporting nontraditional stories, they alsoknow that breaking news is more likely to grab a headline (and an editor’s atten-tion) than investigative reporting. Moreover, as government priorities change— and with it the attention politicians give to the bilateral relationship—so too doesthe importance given to press coverage of the other country. These are constraintsthat ultimately limit the full emergence of the new kind of cross-border journal-ism. But while these constraints impose limitations, they have been unable to stopthe overall trend towards better, more frequent, and more nuanced press coveragebetween Mexico and the United States.

This volume brings together journalists, editors, and scholars from the twocountries to examine the current state of journalistic coverage about each other.The first section lays out the major themes for understanding journalistic coverageacross the border. The remaining three sections each follows a major theme incross-border journalism: providing a more nuanced coverage of political events ineach other’s country; writing new kinds of stories about each other’s society; andcovering the Mexican communities in the United States. The central argument of this volume is that the two countries need a new kind of journalism to respond tothe growing integration that is taking place across the border. We believe that thisnew kind of journalism is emerging, although we also acknowledge that it faces

important limitations to move even faster than it has so far. This volume gives voiceto those leading these changes—publishers, editors, and journalists— as well as tothose observers who follow news coverage closely.

New Stories, New ApproachesOver the past twenty-five years, the number of Mexican and American reporterscovering each other’s country has increased dramatically. The number of newsitems carr ied by major news sources about each other’s country has also increasedsignificantly, and these are more likely to find their way on to the front page of newspapers or become lead stories on the evening news than ever before.However, not only are there more reporters and more stories, but there are dif-ferent stories being told, and reporters are finding new approaches to telling them.

Press coverage between the two countries used to be taken up primarily by afew major issues: trade, drugs, and immigration. While these continue to beimportant stories, the growing complexity of the bilateral agenda has generated anew range of stories being covered. These include the increasingly importantbilateral issues of border security and environment. In addition, they include sto-ries about the economic, political, and social changes taking place in the other

2 Introduction



country. For example, The Washington Post has run a series of stories on Mexico’seducational system and the rule of law; Copley News Service has commissionedstories on migrant lives between the twocountries; and the Wall Street Journal coversinternal economic developments in Mexicoclosely. Similarly, Reforma reproduces storiesfrom the New York Times and regional news-papers like AM León and La Voz de Michoacán give coverage to regional storiesin U.S. states where many of their readershave family members. Almost all media inboth countries give coverage to national election campaigns in the other countrywith a frequency and depth that would have been unimaginable fifteen years ago.

Journalists also give greater nuance to their stories today than fifteen years ago.In many cases, this involves going beyond the black and white portrayals that dom-

inated past coverage to explore the gray areas within the stories. These “gray sto-ries” weave together new angles and fresh perspectives that give context to major events. In some cases, this means presenting the complex debates that go on with-in each country around political campaigns and policy decisions. Sometimes itmeans presenting the historical background of important but controversial issues. Inother cases, it is presenting the real lives of both documented and undocumentedmigrants, as well as addressing the concerns that migration raises in both countries.

What Has ChangedSeveral forces are driving the change in journalistic coverage between Mexico and

the United States. First, the intensity of the relationship between the two countrieshas created a need for citizens to understand those who live across the border, their issues, and their points of view. The volume of trade, the impact of migration, andthe heightened attention to border issues have all raised the profile of bilateral issuesfor citizens in both countries. Even elections in either country get attention in theother country’s media given the impact that electoral shifts in one country can haveon the other. At a time when U.S. international press coverage is overwhelminglygiven to Middle East concerns and Mexican press coverage has turned inward tofocus on the upcoming elections, the two countries have still not fallen out of focusin each other’s press. While there may be little of the headline grabbing news thatexisted in 2001, there is a durability to public attention on the main issues in therelationship that does not allow them to drop completely out of view.

The new journalism is also driven by the emergence of new audiences who aredirectly touched by the other country. As trade and migration have increased, dif-ferent people in both countries have a direct stake in the relationship and followit for highly personal reasons tied to jobs, family, and friends. These audiences arenot always interested in what happens in Washington and Mexico City, however.They include businesspeople, who focus on economic trends in the other coun-


Journalists also give greater nuance to

their stories today than fifteen years ago. Inmany cases, this involves going beyond theblack and white portrayals that dominatedpast coverage to explore the gray areaswithin the stories.



try; Mexican migrants who are interested in hometown stories from their state of origin; families of migrants who often follow events where their relatives live inthe United States; and Americans of Mexican descent, who are often interestedin feature stories that give them a link to their country of heritage. Some news-papers, such as the Dallas Morning News, La Voz de Michoacán, and The Orange Country Register have identified key segments in their readership that fit into oneor more of these categories and targeted news stories specifically to them.

For border media, the challenge is even more complex since their audience isoften binational. Mexican television and radio stations at the border often broadcastto Spanish-speaking audiences on the U.S. side and get much of their advertisingdollars from the United States. U.S. media at the border reach both Americans wholive on the Mexican side and also Mexican businesspeople and politicians who fol-low events across the border closely. In addition, non-profit community radio sta-tions in the two countries have tried to link Spanish-speaking listeners in the UnitedStates with listeners in Mexico through binational call-in programs.

Media companies in the two countries have also developed cross-border alliancesthat have helped shape strategies of journalistic coverage. The strategic partnershipbetween Televisa and Univisión allows for the sharing of news footage (though notstories themselves) between the two networks. Mexico’s TV Azteca has taken a dif-ferent approach, starting its own channel, Azteca Americas, in the United States.Azteca America often borrows coverage from its Mexican parent company, but hasalso had to innovate in creating its own news sources relevant to an audience of Mexicans living in the United States.

Among print media, Reforma has developed an ambitious alliance with the New York Times, where they can reproduce each other’s stories, while El Universal has

done the same with the Dallas Morning News,a paper that has agreements with nine-teen different newspapers in Mexico. Similarly, La Voz de Michoacán has an alliancewith the El Sol de Yakima in eastern Washington state to exchange weekly stories. Inthe United States, several English-language newspapers have developed sister papersin Spanish, including the Chicago Tribune (with Hoy) and the Dallas Morning News(with Al Día).

The role technology and the Internet are also playing in transforming journalismacross the border. Journalists have access to information about the other countryalmost instantly and can consult several sources on a developing story. Particularlyfor smaller regional media, outside of the capitals, this low-cost access to informa-tion has increased their ability to cover international affairs. The Internet has alsoallowed newspapers to engage in online chats with leading public figures across theborder, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Perhaps most importantly, there is a new generation of reporters who know eachother’s countries and are well-versed in its nuances and subtleties. Indeed, somereporters who cover binational issues, including a few in this volume, call bothcountries home or have roots in each. The training, promotion, and retention of journalists who are sensitive to world issues—especially between Mexico and the

4 Introduction



United States—will remain fundamental to improving international reporting.Much of the change that has taken place over time owes itself to the editors andreporters who are familiar with the other country and sensitive to its complexity.

The ChallengesTo a large extent, journalists at leading news sources in Mexico and the UnitedStates have put aside old stereotypes that once dominated public perceptions of each other’s country. American media tended to echo Americans’ perception of Mexico as a land of crime and corruption, while the Mexican press reveled in sto-ries that confirmed their public’s suspicion of the United States as a reckless andviolent neighbor that had to be resisted at all turns. These views no longer dom-inate public opinion in the two countries, but they remain latent in important sec-tors of the intellectual elite and occasionally seep into cross-border reporting aswell. Similarly, reporting in both countries on Mexicans living in the UnitedStates often focuses on undocumented migrants and neglects stories about legal

migrants, despite the roughly equal numbers of both.The most important limitations that journalists face, however, have nothing to

do with stereotypes, but rather with the structure and incentives that cross-border journalism faces. Many Mexican media sources are limited to coveringWashington, DC and, in rare cases, a few other major cities (notable exceptionsare Reforma, with correspondents in three cities, and La Jornada, in two cities).Going beyond traditional coverage, therefore, requires journalists to invest extratime—and occasionally their own resources—in pursuing new stories outside of their usual beat. U.S. media sources are generally based in Mexico City as well,although several have invested considerable resources in their Mexican coverage in

recent years (The Los Angeles Times and Dallas Morning News each have fivereporters in Mexico; the New York Times and Washington Post each have two.)Moreover, journalists know that whatever their own interests and intentions,

breaking stories that present traditional angles often grab headlines more easilythan new stories that require investigative reporting. With the relationshipbetween the two governments increasingly distant, what were once lead storiesabout the other country are often pushed further inside newspapers and magazinesand given less time on television and radio broadcasts. It is often even harder topresent fresh angles and new stories at a time when any cross-border coverage isless likely to generate the interest it once did.

Writing Beyond BoundariesDespite these limitations, the new kinds of reporting emerging in Mexico and theUnited States about each other gives testament to the persistence and creativity of journalists and editors who are interested in looking for new stories told in a differ-ent voice.The new stories—the ones told with nuance and fresh angles—are large-ly those that interpret the changes taking place in each country to audiences in theother and those that explore the integration going on between them. These are sto-




ries that give context to political debates and ideological arguments in the other country; see migrant communities as complex and varied; link the economic andpolitical changes taking place within each country to its impact on the other;explore the border and its challenges as a whole rather than as two halves; and minethe cultural and social links that tie people in the two countries together.

The challenge of the new cross-border journalism is to write beyond bound-aries, to break out of the constraints of international coverage that reports on“the other,” to cover instead a “we”composed of two societies that share a com-mon continent and a common future and are gradually learning to encounter each other in new ways.

This VolumeThis volume is unusual for several reasons. It places journalism and journalists atthe center of the debate over international relations and of the bilateral relation-ship between Mexico and the United States. It brings publishers, editors, corre-

spondents, and scholars into a dialogue about their role as society’s interpretersof events around us. And it is published inEnglish and Spanish—we have deliberatelykept chapters in the language in whichthey were originally written in hopes thatpeople on both sides of the border can findsomething that speaks to them.

The first section of this volume lays outmajor themes and trends in U.S.-Mexico journalism. Rossana Fuentes-Beraín, notes

that journalists are storytellers, yet they have been telling incomplete stories abouteach other’s country, stories devoid of sufficient context to understand the changestaking place across the border. She argues that journalists should write stories inshades of grey, that give sufficient background to interpret the deeper meanings,and she highlights several unwritten stories that need still to be written.

Also in this section, Roderic Ai Camp emphasizes the credibility that thepress has in both countries and the central role that it plays in the quality of democracy. He notes that journalists in each country now do a far better job of providing deeper coverage of the other side of the border; however, he urges journalists to do more to present the ordinary side of life in the other countryand to anticipate future stories that may change the two societies. Phil Bennettobserves that U.S. news coverage of Mexico is increasingly moving beyond theofficial government-to-government agenda into the intersection between gover-nance and everyday life. He notes that Mexico receives a different intensity of interest in the United States from the rest of Latin America. However, he urgesthe media to look for new stories that examine the underlying reasons for polit-ical and economic changes; explain people’s daily lives better; and explore howMexico and the United States mutually influence each other.

6 Introduction

The new stories—the ones told withnuance and fresh angles—are largely those that interpret the changes takingplace in each country to audiences in theother and those that explore the integrationgoing on between them.



7

The second section addresses how media in the two countries cover politics in theother country. Dolia Estévez addresses the challenges that foreign reporters face inWashington and traces the increasing access they have been able to achieve. She alsocalls attention to the tendency for U.S. media to follow fads in their approach to cov-ering Mexico. Mary Beth Sheridan addresses the temptation to cover events in blackand white without taking cultural context into account. Pascal Beltrán del Río notesthe gradual loss of interest in the relationship and the possible consequences this mayhave for bilateral understanding. Jerry Kammer calls for greater balance in Mexicanreporting of the United States and stresses the need for reporters to get out of thecapitals and cover stories in the interior of the two countries. José Carreño address-es the need for more balanced coverage in the U.S. media and points to an occasionalattitude of “anything goes” in U.S. coverage of Mexico. All of the authors acknowl-edge significant advances in media coverage in each other’s country, however.

The third section deals with how media in Mexico and the United States cover each other’s society, beyond the politics of the two capitals. Alfredo Corchado notes

that his paper has three categories of readers who follow Mexico but do not caremuch about elite coverage. These include regular Texans, Mexican-Americans, andMexican immigrants, each of whom has a slightly different interest in coverage of Mexican issues. Jim Cason stresses the importance of writing in shades of gray, butrecognizes that this is often at odds with a reporter’s instinct to get a flashy story onthe front page. Sandra Dibble describes how border reporting crosses the linebetween international and local coverage. She calls on reporters to find the “storiesthat whisper.” Maria Martin addresses the demand for reporting that builds a bridgeof dialogue between Latin America and its diaspora in the United States. She urgesmedia organizations to pay attention to recruiting and retaining journalists with

international and multicultural sensitivity. Alejandro Moreno notes the rise of polling in Mexico as a way of democratizing information, since it gives readers away to know what real people, not just public figures, think.

The final section addresses news coverage of Mexicans living in the UnitedStates. Michael Jones-Correa observes that immigration stories often take facts—andimmigrants themselves—out of context. He notes that most immigrants are legal;most Latinos are not immigrants; and that although immigrants yearn for home,they also put down roots where they live. Armando Guzmán describes the rise of TV Azteca Americas as a fusion between Mexican television and a homegrownproduct with content that targets specific issues of Mexican immigrants. He alsochronicles his own struggle as a journalist in the two countries, at home in both butperpetually treated as an outsider as well. Enrique Gómez addresses the ties that bindMexico and the United States and argues that a new kind of coverage will have todevelop to follow the patterns of migration. Lynne Walker describes the way migra-tion is changing life in a small town in the U.S. heartland and how coverage of thistouched audiences in both countries. Jesús Lemus describes the influence thatmigration has had on the values of people in Michoacán and argues that the medianeed to find more comprehensive responses to these changes.

Writing Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border



AcknowledgementsThis book had its genesis in two seminars held at El Colegio de la Frontera Nortein Tijuana, Baja California, in November 2003, and at the Woodrow WilsonCenter in Washington, DC, in April 2004. Alejandro Junco and Ricardo Elizondo

at Reforma provided important guidance throughout this project, as did RafaelFernández de Castro at ITAM and Javier Treviño at CEMEX. We are especiallygrateful to Rodolfo Cruz and Maricarmen Hernández at El Colegio de laFrontera Norte, as well as to the Colegio’s president Jorge Santibañez, for hostingthe first seminar. Peter Laufer and Deborah Mendelsohn at Internews, which co-sponsored the Tijuana conference, provided important ideas that shaped thinkingon this project. John Bailey, Rafael Fernández de Castro, Marcela Sánchez, andArmando Guzmán served as commentators at the Washington conference. Jeff Brown at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and Liza Davis and Hector Vindiola at theU.S. Consulate in Tijuana were a constant source of support for both events.

In preparing the manuscript, Trisha Fields, Joshua Smith, and Yomara Aguijosa

provided a critical eye and expert copy-editing. Michelle Furman designed thevolume— her work speaks for itself. The editors are, above all, grateful to thechapter authors, whose lively participation at the two seminars inspired the ideafor a book and whose vision shaped its development.

8 Introduction



SECTION 1SECCIÓN 1

Temas Clave en el Periodismo a Través de las Fronteras

Key Themes in Cross-Border Journalism





Los periodistas y los editores son contadores de historias, “storytellers,” y en esesentido, la historia que hemos estado contando en los últimos años sobre lo quepasa en cada uno de los dos países, México y Estados Unidos, y en su relaciónbilateral, es una historia incompleta. Incompleta pero no inexistente. De hechohay mucha cobertura, mucho deseo de explicarnos el uno al otro. Podríamosescoger, el año de la salida del libro de Alan Riding, Vecinos Distantes: Un Retratode los Mexicanos, como el punto de inicio de una historia mejor contada.

Contamos una historia, porque todos los días en los medios de EstadosUnidos y en los de México hay materiales que dan cuenta de lo que esta suce-diendo en nuestras sociedades, pero en ésta hora de crisis donde, ni el periodis-mo estadounidense ni el mexicano están pasando por su mejor hora esas histo-rias no siempre reflejan las tonalidades de gris en las que se vive la cotidianidad,son en cambio historias en blanco o negro, muchas más veces en negro, que soloretratan los problemas que vive la sociedad.

El periodismo estadounidense está pasando por una crisis de credibilidad deproporciones importantes, registrada empíricamente, y que tiene su parte másvisible en un doloroso evento que sucedió en la catedral del periodismo esta-dounidense The New York Times y que tiene nombre y apellido, y se llama JasonBlair, ese periodista que engaño a sus editores y a la sociedad inventando histo-rias que no se correspondían con la realidad.

El periodismo mexicano tampoco está pasando por su mejor época, y en esesentido, no hay un individuo sino muchos, que no están cumpliendo con laconfianza del público al escribir. Muchos porque, acostumbrados a vivir en lacensura y acostumbrados a vivir en el silencio oficial, contamos hoy por hoy conotro tipo de contexto y no necesariamente toda la prensa está viviendo de acuer-do a las expectativas que se tendrían de una prensa seria y profesional.

Tanto la prensa electrónica como la prensa escrita no reportan la cotidianidadde acuerdo a lo que todos tendríamos la expectativa que sucediera. Y eso enMéxico tiene que ver no solo con los reporteros sino también con los editores y con los dueños de los periódicos. Sin duda alguna no podemos evitar pensar

que el trabajo de los reporteros es incompleto si vemos que se ha centrado pref-erentemente en un solo tema el de la “corrupción”y su cobertura sobre escán-dalos políticos colchones, chóferes y las ligas de los fajos de dinero, pareciera ser lo que ocupa la mayor parte del tiempo, sin seguir los preceptos básicos del peri-odismo de tratar de contextualizar estas coberturas.

En ese sentido, vemos que internamente la cobertura de la corrupción enMéxico no tiene contexto y que está ocupando horas y muchas páginas en los per-iódicos en una sucesión de escándalos sin pasado ni futuro, no hay marco de ref-


Rossana Fuentes-Beraínn

Foreign Affairs en Español n“Una Historía Incompleta”



erencia en cuanto a porqué se dieron los hechos y un escaso seguimiento a quésucederá no solo con los protagonistas del escándalo sino con las institucionesinvolucradas en ellos.

Al mismo tiempo la espectacularidad de los escándalos políticos deja de lado lacobertura de otros acontecimientos sociales que tienen la capacidad de transfor-mar al país como son los asuntos demográficos, los retos medioambientales, comola escasez de agua, o simplemente la vida cotidiana de una sociedad compleja.

Esto es responsabilidad de los editores, pero también de un periodismo que nologra hacer de lo importante algo interesante.

En la cobertura de la relación bilateral tampoco estamos mejor. Estamos repro-duciendo una “Tale of Two Cities” una historia en paralelo que creo nos deja a loslectores confusos.

Es alarmante leer en la La Jornada o en el Reforma lo que está sucediendo enWashington, porque desafortunadamente no nos dan una idea muy clara nisiquiera de los datos mismos. Pareciera que la verdad básica no está reflejada de

igual manera en la cobertura, y no hablamos de las interpretaciones editorialessino de los hechos duros y puros.

Como en la caverna de Platón parece que vemos todo el tiempo sombras y norealidades. Los estereotipos dominan, en buena medida la cobertura de la relación,se imponen a veces a la voluntad del periodista de contar otro tipo de historia.

La imagen de los hipócritas belicosos en Estados Unidos y la imagen de los cor-ruptos en México, subyace a mucho del trabajo que se presenta en ambos países.

Los reporteros en el campo podrán quejarse, y lo hacen, de que los editores lespiden este tipo de historias pero habría que preguntarnos si las piden porquetienen ellos solos los perjuicios o si lo hacen porque los lectores esperan ese tipo

de cobertura.Los lectores que a partir de la educación pública nacional y privada, y a partir delos estereotipos reflejados en muchas de las instituciones nacionales, o en los mediosmasivos de comunicación como Hollywood, simple y sencillamente, no quieren

12 Section 1 I Key Themes in Cross Border Journalism

Quisiera señalar cinco puntos que considero que en combinación simultánea constituirían lasnuevas “viejas” historias por cubrir. Primero, la curiosidad y el deseo de ver qué hay mas allá de esalínea divisoria en los dos lados. Hay que alimentar la curiosidad de la gente de ver más allá delestereotipo. Segundo, la búsqueda del oro, nuestras sociedades, juntas, pueden ser más prosperas,pero pocos lo reconocen. Tercero, la vivencia entre los que cruzan la frontera con la esperanza de

encontrar algo colorido del otro lado, retratarlo como un exilio económico pero también como loque es, un rito de pasaje a la madurez. Cuarto, la voluntad expresa de ganar alguna alma encualquiera de los lados de la frontera que quiera salirse de la caverna en la que solo se ven sombraspara que no repita el mismo esquema de los estereotipos a los que nos estábamos refiriendo. Quecuando menos se pregunte si todos los estadounidenses, todos los gringos son malos, y si todos losmexicanos son corruptos. Finalmente, el camino al revés, el estadounidense que va a México enbusca de otro tipo de vida, no sólo a Baja California sino al interior de México. Existen entre 600mil a 1,200 000 estadounidenses que viven en México y de los que pocas veces se escribe.



leernos o vernos cuando presentamos algo distinto, que los confronta con una real-idad que desde luego, vista, o contada desde Washington o desde la ciudad deMéxico con tonos de gris pudiera ser distinta de la óptica de la caverna en dondetodo es blanco o negro.

Yo creo que el parroquialismo, prevale-ciente en nuestras sociedades, el pensar quenuestros respectivos países son el centro deluniverso y no poder comprender la razón deser de los otros, nos hace difícil reflejar ennuestro trabajo los matices de lo que acon-tece en cada uno de los países.

Este estado de las cosas no tiene que ser inamovible. Hoy es cierto que los medios en México están centrados en la cober-tura de los escándalos políticos nacionales y los medios en Estados Unidos encuanto a su cobertura internacional privilegian el Medio Oriente, pero pienso que

entre estos dos extremos tiene que mantenerse una idea central en los dos paísesque corresponda al deber de la prensa de darle al público unos registros de la his-toria básica de nuestros tiempos: la silenciosa pero creciente integración de nues-tras sociedades.

Concluyo señalando que si buscamos entender un poco mejor el nivel deldebate que estamos viviendo y evitar la trampa en la que caemos con los estereoti-pos, simple y sencillamente más allá de los buenos deseos de los académicos, paraque los periodistas no se aburran de escribir la misma historia 50 veces, y seguir dando vueltas a la noria después de muchos años, creo que lo que sería deseable es,efectivamente pasar al principio de salir de la cobertura de lo que es importante

para las elites de ambos países y extender una nueva definición. Yo no sé si estamoslistos, ni en México ni en Estados Unidos, para vivir con esa nueva realidad que seestá construyendo y que nos tiene a los dos, francamente, desconcertados.

Un ejemplo de lo difícil que esta resultando entender esa realidad es el textode Samuel Huntington, reflejando algo que puede no gustar, pero que es real. Loque es real es el miedo, de los estadounidenses frente a la inmigración mexicanalegal e ilegal no el texto, de Samuel Huntington respecto a lo que implica la entra-da masiva de mexicanos en Estados Unidos.

Igualmente importante para México es entender como ha cambiado lasociedad estadounidense a partir de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre del2001. Este es un tema que siempre tenemos en consideración cuando estamoshaciendo la revista, Foreign Affairs en Español , ya que esos hechos tienen grandesrepercusiones en la frontera, en la economía y en general en las decisiones de losestadounidenses que repercuten en la Republica Mexicana.

En la revista Foreign Affairs buscamos tener un espejo de dos caras y vernos por la una y por la otra, creo que los editores tendremos que ofrecer y conseguir quelos reporteros sigan escribiendo historias interesantes fuera del ámbito de lo pre-decible y previsible, y también que los editores tengamos la posibilidad de enten-


Como en la caverna de Platón parece quevemos todo el tiempo sombras y no reali-dades. Los estereotipos dominan, en buenamedida la cobertura de la relación, se impo-nen a veces a la voluntad del periodista decontar otro tipo de historia.



der mejor a los públicos y entrar en una doble vía de educarlos sí pero tambiénescucharlos, tratar de ser tocados por ellos para entenderlos mejor.

El historiador Hugh Thomas sugirió ampliar nuestro entendimiento sobre elnuevo mundo, el se refería a otro “nuevo mundo” pero usando su metáfora con-sidero que en este momento la responsabilidad de los periodistas tanto en Méxicocomo en Estados Unidos es la de reflejar la construcción de una nueva realidadbilateral y nacional.

Nuestros países han cambiado muy evidentemente en lo interno en el últimocuarto de siglo, pero además han cambiado mucho más en cuanto a su relaciónbilateral. En el Siglo 20 se pretendía, como Alan Riding lo describió muy ati-

nadamente, que fueramos “VecinosDistantes”, pero ya no lo somos, no hay, nodebe haber un océano de incomprensiónentre nosotros, aunque a veces algunos int-electuales mexicanos y estadounidenses

quisieran que lo hubiera.La oportunidad y el reto para los peri-

odistas mexicanos y estadounidenses esdescribir tanto los puntos de vista de

quienes se oponen al cambio como los de quienes lo viven cotidianamente, laoportunidad y el reto para los periodistas mexicanos y estadounidenses es servir mejor a sus sociedades contando mejor un cuento, el cuento de lo que pasa todoslos días para unir y para separar a nuestras sociedades.


La oportunidad y el reto para los periodistasmexicanos y estadounidenses es servirmejor a sus sociedades contando mejor un

cuento, el cuento de lo que pasa todos losdías para unir y para separar a nuestrassociedades.





Regardless of the press coverage of each country, the degree to which ordinarycitizens are influenced by the print media depends largely on their respect for andconfidence in it. As press coverage evolved in the last decade, the World ValuesSurvey of 40 countries in the 1990s conducted a survey about citizen confidence inthe press. According to this survey, in the United States, 56 percent expressed con-siderable or great trust in the press, substantially above the world norm of 42 per-cent. Forty-nine percent of Mexicans expressed such a view of their print media. In2001, this figure had increased to 55 percent among Mexicans.

Typically, citizens of both countries rank educational and religious institutions asthe most trustworthy. Political institutions rank near the bottom, and the armedforces in the middle. Individually, in 2002, Mexican citizens ranked politicians andpolicy-makers as the most likely to be corrupt, and reporters, along with priests andteachers, as the least likely. In terms of the media’s potential influence on politicalactivity, scholarship suggests, “that the degree of political participation of an indi-vidual will vary directly and strongly with the number and kind of his organization-

al and media ties to society.”At the end of the decade, The Wall Street Journal conducted an extensive poll that

reveals several relevant underlying conclusions about citizens’ views of each other that may well affect the media’s impact or individually may have been formed by theprint media. Latin Americans, and Hispanics in the United States, viewed Mexicoas the best friend of the United States among all Latin American countries, by ahuge margin. Mexicans viewed the United States, followed by Japan, as their bestfriends. In spite of these rather positive views on friendship, in 2000, 70 percent of Mexicans viewed the United States as trying to dominate the world, compared toonly 21 percent who saw them playing a constructive role.

To understand the impact that journalists have on citizens generally, and politicsspecifically, it is worth noting briefly where individuals obtain their informationabout politics. Only 20 percent of Mexicans indicate they obtain their informationabout politics from the newspaper, while 80 percent point to television as their mostimportant source. On the other hand, 31 percent of Mexicans read a newspaper atleast 5 or more days a week, and an additional 37 percent do so 1–4 days a week.Eighteen percent indicate they pay a lot of attention to political news in the news-paper and 23 percent pay some attention.

Two thirds of Mexicans have either read in print media or heard from electronicmedia about U.S. activities—a third of Mexicans viewed U.S. actions towardMexico in a positive light, and a fifth viewed them as ‘ok.’ Only 15 percent viewedthem negatively, and surprisingly, a third had no opinion on this issue. Generally,two-fifths of Mexicans expressed a positive view of the United States, and a third an‘ok’ view. Finally, the degree to which journalists can have an influence on funda-mental citizen views and attitudes toward politics, let alone other subjects, is affect-ed by the existing attitudes that those citizens already express toward such values.

Since democratic politics is at the heart of their respective political models, itis important to emphasize that Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and all other




17

Americans have distinct views of democracy and what they expect from democ-racy. It may well be that the print media is reinforcing those differences, or break-ing them down. For Mexicans, no consensus exists about democracy, and abouthalf of all Mexicans are equally divided in conceptualizing democracy as libertyand equality. For Mexican-Americans, two fifths view it as liberty and another 15percent as equality. Among other Americans, two-thirds view it as liberty, whileonly 8 percent as equality.

Politically, reporting on elections and democracy has dominated much of thecontent in American newspapers. Perhaps the most influential single political event,where American media coverage contributed significantly to the long-term out-come of Mexican politics and democracy, as well as to U.S. perceptions of Mexicanpolitics, goes back to an editorial which appeared in The Wall Street Journal , fol-lowing a highly controversial gubernatorial election in Guanajuato in 1991.

The editorial, which alleged extensive fraud on the part of the PRI, forcedPresident Carlos Salinas de Gortari, anticipating the need to present a favorable

image among elite readers toward Mexican democracy to ensure passage of NAFTA, to nullify the outcome in favor of his party. Instead of allowing thePAN candidate to take office, he appointed a Panista of his own choice. Thatignored candidate was, of course, Vicente Fox, who went on to become theparty’s candidate for governor six years later, winning by an overwhelming mar-gin. Meanwhile, the constitution was altered to allow children of parents whowere not the children of native-born Mexicans to run for the presidency, mak-ing him eligible to run in 2000. Fox used his base in Guanajuato to propel him-self into the presidency. The point is that a Wall Street Journal editorial initiatedthis chain of events, which could hardly have been anticipated from an editorial

written nine years earlier.The most significant example of the role that media generally has played on apolicy decision affecting Mexico and the United States, and where one couldeven make the claim that both Mexican and U.S. media played complementaryand allied roles, was in their coverage of the Zapatista uprising in January, 1994.I personally received more calls from correspondents in the month following theuprising than for any other event during my professional lifetime, between 100and 200 calls in a 30-day period.

Most scholars would agree that the media coverage of that event resulted inshort and long term policy consequences, including a quick end to the armedforces’ suppression of the rebels; a reversal of the Salinas administration’s policytoward the rebels; a reexamination within the armed forces of its structure, profes-sionalization, and public relations, which led to significant internal reorganizationand the rise of a new generation of officers to three star rank and command of thenational defense ministry; the development of a new wartime strategy that theRAND Corporation labeled net war (i.e., fighting a war through the print andelectronic media, especially the internet, rather than through traditional means);bringing human rights to the forefront of government policy as well as military

Writing Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border




policy; and finally, the explosion of civic organizations and non-governmentalorganizations contributing significantly to grassroots support for democracy.

The most influential contribution the media has played politically in presentingboth countries’ perspectives to their respective readership, however, is the long-term campaign for electoral democracy, especially from 1994 through 2000. Theprint media has accomplished this in several ways. Most importantly, it began tocertify and popularize the use of public opinion research to legitimize elections and,therefore, increase the likelihood that those elections would be fair and honest.

Initially, polls were abused and published with partisan biases, emphasizing thedubiousness of their contribution. Eventually, as the press itself discussed themethodological abuses, however, and some media such as Reforma hired their ownpollsters, and more commonly reputable, professional pollsters, they were able toaccurately predict and or certify official election results. Well-read independent vot-ers knew, a week before the election when the campaign ended in 2000, that thePRI and PAN candidates were in a dead heat, and that Mr. Fox indeed could win.

According to Chappell Lawson, one of the most careful analysts of mediainfluence in Mexico, the transformation of Mexico’s media to a more investiga-tive, objective, and independent force in the 1990s produced powerful and far-reaching influences on Mexican political life, including its coverage of civil soci-ety and legitimizing independent political activity while discrediting authoritari-an institutions, thus increasing support for opposition parties.3

Fifteen years ago, the Bilateral Commission on U.S.-Mexican Relations rec-ommended to the media that they develop closer contacts between Mexican andU.S. journalists. I think that has improved, as illustrated by the development of aservice to provide English translations of Mexican news and commentary to U.S.

print media— some examples of this now exist, such as the Lazos news servicefrom Foreign Relations. There is also anincrease in information services to the U.S.media from Mexican private and publicagencies; the Internet alone has influencedthe availability of sources. Moreover, therehas been an increase in workshops by bothcountries directed at the needs of editors

and journalists—that too has increased based on my own personal experienceswith Tulane University, UC-Berkeley and the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies atUCSD. If we return to the original perceptions of both print media at the begin-ning of the 1990s, what has changed in the last decade and a half? Based on mybrief survey of some U.S. papers, the bulk of the coverage remains concentratedon political and economic subjects. The other subjects John Bailey identified ascommon in the 1980s remain equally visible today, that is, drugs, corruption,immigration, and violence. Although I have no empirical data to compare withthe extensive data analyzed previously, I would say coverage of Mexico hasincreased overall, and especially so prior to September 2001.

Both Mexican and U.S. journalists need todo more to present the ordinary side ofeach other’s cultures even when they arefocusing on high-visibility political topics.




It is still true today, based on my reading of the Los Angeles Times, The New YorkTimes, and The Washington Post , that news on Mexico printed in the United Statesdoes not come from Mexican sources. Most news from Mexico published in theUnited States is still reported by correspondents and part-time stringers. Mexicannewspapers continue to translate and publish editorials and articles by leading journalists from the United States.

For example, one Mexican regional newspaper I read has published every arti-cle in the last six years from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The L.A.Times the day that it appears in those respective newspapers. Indeed, typically I readit in Spanish before I read it in English. Regional newspapers, have, however,increased significantly their coverage of international news, and news about theUnited States. I read a Yucatan newspaper and the coverage of the Kerry campaignand the presidential race was a daily event. I believe, based on my own contactswith reporters, that more Mexican journalists today report on the United Statesfirst-hand than prior to 1990.

Lawson argues that Mexican newspapers began to cover subjects that were pre-viously off-limits: drug trafficking, official corruption, electoral fraud, and gov-ernment repression. I would argue, however, that those topics already had beencovered in the 1980s as well, just not asthoroughly and more selectively.

So what does this leave us with? From anacademic’s point of view, journalists shouldconsider a number of things. My first pointis that although I think it is obviously diffi-cult to sell this to your editors, I believe that

both Mexican and U.S. journalists need to do more to present the ordinary side of each other’s cultures even when they are focusing on high-visibility political top-ics. American journalists have actually done this more commonly than Mexican journalists. I have never encountered an individual portrait of an American in theMexican media, but what I have noticed about American essays about Mexicans isthat they typically portray individuals in adverse circumstances.

The readers in both countries have an incomplete view of each other’s soci-eties and cultures.One of the best articles I recently read about Mexico in the U.S.media was a detailed analysis of access or lack of access among recent high schoolgraduates in Mexico City applying for college admission at public institutions. Itwas an informative article (I learned plenty as an expert on Mexico). It was mov-ing and it involved a young woman’s suicide over not getting into college, and itwas dealing actually with a very significant problem—the inadequacy of publicuniversity education in Mexico City.

Considering the huge amount of attention that was paid to NAFTA back inthe 1990s, there has been little coverage by comparison with the consequences of that agreement, particularly for most Mexicans. What I am suggesting is thatmaybe journalists on both sides consider exploring the lives of successful individ-

I also believe reporters should take the initiative in identifying deserving topics andactors even if they are not “in the news” at this particular moment.




uals and not those whose settings stem from institutional failures or corruption or violence or some other difficulty.

The second point that I would make is that I also believe reporters should takethe initiative in identifying deserving topics and actors even if they are not “in thenews” at this particular moment and explore them from a specific angle. For exam-ple, in the political realm in Mexico, reporters from both countries have rarely ana-lyzed the roles of two influential actors, the Catholic Church and the Mexican mil-itary. As a result, neither of them is well understood on either side of the border.

In fact, I would say that on the Mexican side of the border, civil-military rela-tions are a crucial variable in the maintenance of the democratic model. And yet fewMexicans— in fact, few Mexicans among the leadership in Mexico—actually knowanything about the armed forces. I would go further and say that even discussing themilitary is not part of the policy agenda in Mexico and it almost never reaches thelevel of public debate.

It would be equally valuable, instead of focusing most commonly on the failures

of democracy in the Fox administration, to look at some of the long-term struc-tural changes which his coming to office has set into motion. One example is thetransparency law, which I think has played a tremendous role in establishingaccountability. And, of course, it plays a crucial role for the media on both sides of the border. Additionally, it has opened up the armed forces, which is the mostclosed institution in Mexico, to some public scrutiny. A number of journalists havecalled me from time to time and asked my opinion about these types of topics, butI am just arguing that maybe this needs to be done more frequently and regularly.

Finally, and again I think this is difficult to do, if reporters perceive their roleon both sides of the border as raising the caliber of the debate on public policy

issues, then it is important to actually anticipate those issues and discuss them ingreater detail.For example, if President Bush actually does revive immigration reform as an

agenda item in Congress, I think it will become a campaign issue in the presiden-tial race. The debate on that issue is going to be complicated by partisan agendas aswell as by cultural conservatives who view Mexican and Latino immigrants as afrontal attack on American culture.

My point would be that we actually know a lot about what individual immi-grants and groups of immigrants now think, based on extensive recent research inthe last three or four years, and I think both American and Mexican readers wouldlike to know what they think about politics, instead of a lot of anecdotal informa-tion that people have been providing to support their various points of view. It mayalso surprise them to know that Mexican-Americans, in terms of their views aboutdemocracy, quickly take on the more traditional, non-Mexican-American view.Even more interesting, Mexican-Americans are more satisfied with democracy thanare all other Americans.

Professor Huntington, in his recent controversial article prefacing his book,Who We Are:The Challenges to America’s Identity, never considered those findings. In




fact, he doesn’t cite a single piece of empirical information about the political or economic beliefs of Mexican-Americans. It would also be worth knowing, becauseI think once again the debate on bilingual education is going to be revived by thislarger debate on immigration, that language usage, and not time in the UnitedStates, is by far the most crucial variable explaining political assimilation.

Journalists from both sides of the border then need to focus on Mexican-American issues because even the issue, once again, of voting in Mexican elec-tions is part of the public agenda already on the Mexican side. Seventy-six per-cent of the Mexican public believes that should be the case, that that law shouldbe implemented. Even more strikingly, the same percentage of members of Mexico’s Congress also agrees with that policy position.

A recent Pew Foundation study indicated that fewer than half of all Hispanicsin the United States believe that English-language media does a good job of cov-ering news relevant to their interests, versus 70 percent who say that for Spanish-language media. Half of all Hispanic voters actually obtain their news in English

and 40 percent from both languages in the United States.Finally, I would say that maybe journalists do not view their mission in terms of

news, other than presenting and interpreting factual information. However, interms of complex issues, I believe you do, and should, perform an important serv-ice in terms of our respective societies regarding what I call civic education. I thinkthat happened definitively in the whole democratization debate and evolution.

A crucial caveat, regardless of whatever mission journalists perform, is that Ithink it is important to remember that North American journalists who writeabout Mexico are going to influence and educate Mexican readership becausetheir views are repeated word for word and translated the next day in the Mexican

press. Unfortunately, however, this is not yet the case of Mexican journalists writ-ing about the United States.

Notes1. John Bailey, “Mexico in the U.S. Media, 1979– 88: Implications for the Bilateral

Relation,” in John H. Coatsworth and Carlos Rico, eds., Images of Mexico in the United States (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UCSD, 1989), p. 74, quoting John C.Merrill and Whitney Mundt, “U.S. Daily Newspaper Coverage of Mexico,” Paper pre-sented at Journalists’ Symposium, Washington, D.C., May 17–20, 1981.

2. Bailey, “Mexico in the U.S. Media,” p. 31, quoting Roger Morris, “Mexico, The U.S.Press Takes a Siesta,” Columbia Journalism Review, (January-February, 1985).

3. Chappell H. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of the Free Press in Mexico, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002




I write this as a generalist. I am the assistant managing editor for foreign news at theThe Washington Post , which means I oversee the global coverage of the newspaper,and so some of my reflections are somewhat general as a result.1 They are also influ-enced because I live largely in the sensory deprivation tank of the newsroom, rather than out reporting. That too may account for my optimism about this subject.

It is difficult to define any single moment in U.S.-Mexican relations because itis such a complex relationship. When I was a correspondent in Mexico City in themid-’80s, which, of course, now seems like the Dark Ages in almost every way,then-President Miguel de la Madrid was interviewed by American television dur-ing a typically bad moment in relations between the two countries. He was askedwhether or not this was the worst moment ever in relations between the UnitedStates and Mexico, and he said, no, it is not as bad as 1848.

It is important to bring some perspec-tive to these questions of U.S-Mexicanrelations. So why am I optimistic? It seemsto me that there are emerging new formsof journalism about Mexico that breaksome of the tired, traditional formulas that

many of us have contributed to and accepted over the years. The old ways nowseem clearly inadequate for describing what is going on there or here, or in the

spaces in between.It is important to go back to 2001 as a point of comparison. There was eupho-

ria then among Americans who write or read about Mexico that the story wasfinally going to be recognized for the importance that some of us were alwaysconvinced that it had. Looking back, of course, that hope died on September 11.I think it was also a false hope, however, because it fit squarely within the tradi-tion of coverage, one driven from the top down by policy and political agendas,championed by elites and embodied by two presidents on horseback, which wasthe image that we were fed over and over again.

Today, Washington is a ghost town when it comes to ambitious, daring, or

important thinking about Mexico. I mean official Washington. Nobody above theassistant secretary level seems to pay it much mind at all. In addition, for other andrelated reasons, the Fox administration has abandoned its dreams of an historicperiod of change in the relationship.

So how did the media respond to this dramatic reversal of fortune between thehope of August and September 2001 and today? I think a lot of people tookadvantage of it to open new areas of coverage and to advance innovative andenterprising approaches.

nPhilip Bennett

nThe Washington Post “Getting Ahead of the Curve”

Today, Washington is a ghost town when itcomes to ambitious, daring, or important thinking about Mexico. I mean officialWashington.




In the case of The Washington Post , our two correspondents there, Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, wrote a series of stories about rule of law in Mexicothat was the most ambitious body of work that the paper had published fromMexico in many years. It won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize.

More importantly, this journalism created a template for us of writing aboutthe intersection between daily experience and governance in a way that had deephuman resonance. There was a sense of being liberated from some of the tradi-tional agenda that had dominated, and still to some extent dominates coverage.

Since that series, we have published extensive stories on the Mexican educa-tion system, which is something that we probably would not have looked atotherwise. These are subjects that are outside the state-to-state agenda. Our free-dom from having to follow the official agenda led us from a fairly traditional andmainstream approach to go into new areas.

To sum up, I think that in some ways coverage has become deinstitutional-ized as part of the greater diversity and range that has been described in other

papers in this volume.Still, I do not think it is time for us to pat ourselves on the back. As an edi-

tor at a major American newspaper, I think that coverage of Mexico is still waybehind the curve. What I mean by that is that it has not caught up to the vari-ety, complexity, importance, and continuity of the U.S.-Mexico relationship asit is lived everyday by millions of people.

A story about Mexico in the U.S.media is still told by outsiders in a way thatoften reveals as much about the point of view of the author as it does about the

subjects. Compare coverage of Mexico tothat of China or even the Arab world,where you see new narrative forms beingintroduced to challenge stereotypes and todig deeper. Coverage of Mexico has beenslower to evolve.

As an editor, I am hungry for more of these stories and I will outline threetypes of stories that I think would fit that need.

The first is narrative journalism that, as I just suggested, works from theinside out, either through experiences or by revealing authentic voices. Giventhe real intimacy of the relationship between the two countries, that intimacyis seldom reflected in what you read in the mainstream—or hear on radio or seeon television in the mainstream media in the United States. The second groupis stories that deconstruct important aspects of Mexican culture, economics, or politics. A lot of newspapers tried this around the NAFTA anniversary withvarying degrees of success. I have not by any means read it all. There was aninteresting series in Cox Newspapers on this subject concerning whether or noteconomic benefits trickled down to affect other parts of life in Mexico.

This journalism created a template for us ofwriting about the intersection between dailyexperience and governance in a way that

had deep human resonance. There was asense of being liberated from some of the traditional agenda that had dominated, andstill to some extent dominates coverage.




There are more general types of questions that could be asked about Mexicomore often in the American media, such as: How does power work? What is real-ly the role of the church, of the military, of economically powerful groups? Whyis Mexico still so poor? What is the source of income disparity and inequality?Why has crime exploded? These are standard journalism topics that are applied in

other places, places that are taken seriously,and Mexico is certainly a place that theU.S. media should be taking seriously inevery way.

The third group of stories I would liketo see or I think that there is a market for

or that journalists could make inroads writing if you were a young (or even notso young) correspondent, is how Mexico and the United States continue to exertchange on one another. I think this is one of the most important stories of our times. Getting at it requires a push for continuous reinvention of the border story,

which has become, of course, a stereotype.It is clear now that the border exists in some form wherever the encounter

between Mexico and the United States occurs, whether or not it is in Atlanta or Manhattan or my hometown of San Rafael, California. The border is replicatedin all of those communities, with economic, cultural, and political implicationsthat are important to all of us.

Finally, to continue this list-making exercise, I would like to mention four trends that I see influencing our coverage of this relationship, listed here withoutorder of importance. The first is that Mexico is going to continue to separate itself from the rest of Latin America as an area of press coverage. For example, no one

is even talking about the U.S. coverage of Brazil. U.S. media do not cover Brazil.It is not a topic of conversation. In many ways Mexico is becoming increasinglya sort of special case. I am not sure what that means, but it is an interesting trend.

The second trend is that non-elites are increasingly going to set the agenda andthat media is likely to be slow to pick this up. This returns to the idea of beingbehind the curve, that there are experiences of people—people’s experience of immigration, of economic influences being exerted across the border—that arenot being felt in Washington or represented by Washington, but are the dailybread of many, many people who are not being consulted by the national media.

The third trend is that Latinos in the United States matter as readers, as voters,and as consumers. Particularly as their political power increases and as the dividepolitically hardens, as some polling shows, this is something that is going to drivemedia coverage. Polls also show that most Latino immigrants to the United Statesor most Latinos in the United States identify in some way with Mexico.They alsotell pollsters that they care about what happens in Mexico.

The fourth trend is that the Web, although slowly, will matter more as a vehi-cle for carrying news freely across the border, for creating new forums, newaudiences, new constituencies, and more critical demand for information.

Mexico is going to continue to separateitself from the rest of Latin America as anarea of press coverage.




I conclude with an anecdote of a situation that really surprised us, althoughlike a lot of things in this relationship it was a moment of revelation followed bya sort of silence. It happened before the 2002 election. We did an online chat onwashingtonpost.com with Vicente Fox during the early stages of the campaignwhen we barely had even written a story about him in the newspaper. In an hour,there were more than a thousand questions. It broke the record at that time for questions on washingtonpost.com. We were stunned—we even received ques-tions in Spanish, from Puebla. My first thought was that if it were the PRI thatthey would have set this up but, being the PAN and not having the capacity for that kind of organization, we realized that these were legitimate questions fromall over the United States and even from Mexico.

Three or four years later, I have no idea what that meant. It did not translateinto any long-term thing. We did other live chats. We even did other live chatswith Fox but they did not draw the same sort of audience. That experience stillbaffles me but it raised questions that still seem important for anybody thinking

about the media.

Notes1. Philip Bennett has since been named Managing Editor at The Washington Post



SECTION 2SECCIÓN 2

La Cobertura Política a través de las Fronteras

Reporting Politics Across the Border






A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine sent me an e-mail telling me that she couldnot get her editors in Mexico to “buy” her stories because they were not sensa-tionalist enough. She concluded, “Foreign reporters, like you and me, are becom-ing a threatened species.” Exaggeration? Not really. Corruption scandals, the videoof the week, and the never-ending fights between the political parties and with-in the Fox administration have taken over, most of the time, the evening news andthe front pages of the papers.

International news, unless it concerns a dramatic event like the March 11 ter-rorist attacks in Madrid, are secondary to the internal, political laundry machine.

Not even the bloody fighting in Iraq is seen as more newsworthy than the internal,sensationalist political events in Mexico.Since the invasion of Iraq, the United States is perceived more than ever before

in recent years as imperialist, arrogant, and unilateralist. Anti-Americanism has dra-matically increased, and this reality is strongly reflected in the Mexican press.

This does not make the job of a Mexican correspondent in Washington, D.C.easier. Maintaining balanced coverage when there is an administration obsessed withterrorism and Iraq, with little or no interest in issues important to Mexico, such asimmigration and international law, is, to say the least, a daily challenge.

In today’s technological information era, few nations in the world escape mediascrutiny. However, because of its unique relationship with the United States,

Mexico is more widely covered and analyzed in the U.S. press than other countriesnot at war or in a crisis. Our unique relationship with the United States comparesto no other nation in Latin America and is based in historical and geographical facts.

For this reason, we have an intense and complex agenda that, in turn, shapes toa great extent the Mexican reporting in the United States. We have more officialvisits than any country in the hemisphere, and perhaps the world.We also have morebilateral treaties, trade, investment, and immigrants than any other nation in thehemisphere.

The intense agenda resulting from this special relationship shaped the coverageseen in the past decade and a half. In the beginning of the 1990s, the priority in the

agenda was trade and the NAFTA negotiations; in the mid 1990s it turned to drugs,corruption, and certification; in 1995 to the peso crisis; and during the first three years of the Fox administration, to immigration and border issues. It is fair to saythat Washington generates more news and information for Mexico than for anyother nation in the hemisphere.

One candid U.S. official recently said to me, “Right now, with the mess in Iraqand the threat of terrorism, the only Latin American country on the administration’sscreen is Mexico, and the reason is very simple: the border.”

Dolia Estévezn

Radio Monitor/Poder n“The Challenge of Being a Foreign Reporter”



30 Section 2 I Reporting Politics Across the Border

This brings me to our work in Washington, D.C. Being a Mexican corre-spondent in Washington, D.C. is the dream of many young reporters in Mexico.If journalism is the world’s best occupation, as García Marquez claims, thenWashington is the Mount Olympus of the profession. But, as the Mexican songgoes, “no hay nada mas bello que lo que nunca he tenido” (there is nothing morebeautiful that what I have never had).

Washington is a tough nut to crack, especially for foreign reporters, who oftenhave less access to government sources than the intern of the smallest newspaper of the tiniest state of the United States.

If before NAFTA Washington was an important foreign post for Mexicanreporters, during the NAFTA negotiations it became the number one post. In1989, there were three Mexican media organizations with correspondents inWashington. By 1994, the number jumped to eleven, where it remains now.

In the beginning of the 1990s, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to getU.S. officials to return calls (an exclusive interview with a top level official was

pretty much out of the question). In the1990s there were two major developmentsthat changed the role of media in the bilat-eral relation: the NAFTA negotiations andthe technological information revolution.

As a result, now there is more accessand sources of information can actually bedeveloped. There are two reasons for this:

Mexican media is perceived as more professional, trustworthy, and independentthan before, and, because news travels in real time, the U.S. government seems

to be more concerned with what the foreign media publishes than ever before.In this new era, we have become transmitters of messages, an arena for settling or starting new disputes, and a means to test political or negotiation posi-tions. In the information age, the media does not make foreign policy—but for-eign policy cannot be made without the media.

U.S. Counterparts in MexicoDuring the Salinas administration, the U.S. media lost objectivity and balance.The coverage was nothing but praise for the “reform-minded Harvard-trainedpresident,” portrayed as a “model” for developing nations. The U.S. press becameSalinas’ cheerleaders.

The events of 1994 and 1995—the Chiapas uprising against NAFTA, politi-cal assassinations, corruption, and the arrest of Raul Salinas de Gortari— stunnedU.S. reporters. All those glowing stories about the Salinas “revolution” nowseemed a colossal embarrassment. Some reporters felt obliged to publicly admitthat “Salinas nos engañó” (lied to us).

In part as a reaction to the flop with Salinas, during the Zedillo administra-tion, the U.S. press performed a 180-degree turn. As Michael Massing wrote in

Washington is a tough nut to crack, espe-cially for foreign reporters, who often haveless access to government sources than the intern of the smallest newspaper of the tiniest state of the United States.




the Columbia Journalism Review , “they went from one extreme to the other.”Mostly, the coverage on Mexico during the Zedillo administration was alarmistand one-dimensional.

To give one example: according to a Lexis-Nexis search that I conducted in1998, from 1989 to 1994, The New York Times and The Washington Post together published 1,334 stories on drugs and corruption, compared to 1,391 in the firstthree years of the Zedillo administration. In other words, the same number of stories but during three years, not six.

Something similar happened with the Fox administration. During 2000 and thefirst half of 2001, readers of the U.S. press knew more about Fox’s cowboy bootsthan about his qualifications and policies to deliver on his campaign promises for change. The U.S. press was consumed with the man and fixated on his personality.

In his piece, Massing said that it was somewhat understandable. Fox’s election,putting an end to 71 years of one party rule, “marked a true watershed in Mexicanhistory, and U.S. reporters, like the rest of the world, got caught up in the eupho-

ria”. The U.S. media welcomed Fox’s historical election and believed, like mostMexicans, that Mexico would change for the better, that Fox would fight corrup-tion, poverty, and repression. But nothing or very little has happened.

By mid-2001, Fox became a disappoint-ment for the international press. Now, Foxis often called a lame duck president, inca-pable of running the country (I would notsay tying his shoes because he wearsboots...) and putting order within his owngovernment. The U.S. press learned the les-

son of the Salinas’ experience. The honeymoon with Fox did not last long.Media coverage can project images of success or failure, which, in turn, caninfluence policy decisions by governments. It can also perpetuate stereotypes.U.S. administrations have traditionally blamed the Mexican media with reinforc-ing the image of the United States as an imperial nation that does nothing goodfor Mexico. In the same vein, Mexican governments have resented the U.S.media for what they see as promoting the perception of Mexico as a society rid-dled with corruption, inefficiency, and impunity for wrongdoers.

As a conclusion, I would say the Mexican media in the United States has animportant role to play. As a Mexican diplomat once said to me, “In Mexico, theUnited States is often seen through the eyes of the Mexican correspondents.”Thebetter we understand the United States, the better we will be able to report onit. Due to our direct contact with the U.S. public and political process, we are ina good position to overcome stereotypes and shed the historical, emotional bag-gage resulting from an often-contentious bilateral history that tends to contami-nate the views of otherwise well-informed analysts.

The ability to transmit a sober view of the United States can only help theMexican public better understand the relationship.

Media coverage can project images of suc-cess or failure, which, in turn, can influencepolicy decisions by governments. It canalso perpetuate stereotypes.




When I was thinking about the challenges that Americans face covering Mexico, Irecalled an episode that was important to me when I worked in Colombia years ago.I was writing a long investigative piece about the ties between then president ErnestoSamper and the Cali cartel. One of my interviews was with a well-established womanin Colombia, the editor of Cambio 16 .

I was drilling her about what I considered a bizarre point: that President Samper had had long-time ties with these guys who were at the very least dodgy business-men—and who came to be known as the head of the Cali cartel.

At a certain point, the editor threw up her hands and said, “No seas tan

Maniqueísta.” Manichaean was a term I heard all the time in Mexico, and I am sureall of you who are well steeped in philosophy know what it is. I did not and had togo look it up. We never use the word in English.But, of course, it is the way of look-ing at the world by dividing everything into black and white, good guys and bad guys.

Her comment made me think long andhard not only about that story, but abouthow we cover foreign countries. I think thiswhole Manichaean approach to looking atMexico does crop up quite a lot in theAmerican media. Not only in newspapersbut also in mass media outlets. For example,

I was thinking about the movie “Traffic” and how the parts that were filmed inSouthern California were bright and sunny. When they moved across the border,it became sepia-toned and the Mexicans—or at least Mexico—seemed like asomewhat evil place.

There were a couple of topics of coverage where I just thought the temptation tobe Manichaean was particularly strong. One was drug trafficking. It was a big storywhen I was in Mexico. It is the kind of story in which it is quite easy for a corre-spondent to wag a finger at the Mexicans and say, “Why aren’t you doing more?”

When I arrived in Mexico, I was quite fascinated with the Mexicans’ relationshipwith drug trafficking. I was coming from Colombia, a country where this was a huge

issue, of course. There was one early story that I undertook to try and understandwhat was going on and move beyond the finger wagging. I went to Sinaloa, the tra-ditional heartland of Mexican drug trafficking. In a place like that, it is such a part of the fabric of life that people are fairly open, much more open than they would be inMexico City.

Working through the local PAN politicians, I got people to take me up into themountains where drug lord Enrique Camarena grew up. I got to see the magnificentchurches that the drug traffickers had built for people in this really poor area, and

nMary Beth Sheridan

nThe Washington Post “Beyond Black and White”

I think this whole Manichaean approach tolooking at Mexico does crop up quite a lot in the American media. Not only in newspapersbut also in mass media outlets.




how they had brought electricity and paved roads and brought all these services thatthe government had never provided. It was a pretty vivid demonstration of why atleast parts of Mexican society were pretty tolerant of drug trafficking. It was not ablack-and-white issue.

A second topic of coverage where I think this Manichaean tendency comes upis corruption. I think it is so easy to wave the finger—rather than write about whythese horrible scandals occur and what they say about Mexico. I used to work inItaly years ago and I thought it had some similarities to Mexico, in that for a longtime, corruption was practically an official part of the structure, the oil that madethe machine work. If there is not an effort to go beyond simply reporting on cor-ruption scandals, I think the impression left in the minds of readers can be simplythat Mexicans are bad people, that they are corrupt people, rather than that this ispart of how their political system developed.

The third area where this was a big temptation was in covering politics. At thetime I was in Mexico, I thought there was often a failure on the part of the

American media to understand the PRI. It was sometimes painted in a uniformlydark way or a black and white image of wrong and right. This is not to say that thePRI did not do a lot of really horrible things, but I think that there was often afailure or reluctance to understand the role of the PRI in Mexican history and tobe able to look at it not as a sort of dictatorial or monolithic thing, but as an impor-tant expression of the way Mexico worked.

So why does this occur? First of all, journalism lends itself to telling stories in avery simplistic fashion. We have a limited amount of space and these are complexideas. Our audience is a mass one. And it is striking how powerfully our stereotypestrap us. I thought this was true of both Americans in Mexico and Mexican

reporters in the United States.The classic case was every year when the U.S. government was certifyingwhether drug-producing countries were cooperating in the fight against narcoticstrafficking. There was inevitably the cry both in Colombia and in Mexico of,“Why do we hear all about the Americans denouncing the drug lords in our coun-try? How come we never hear about the drug lords in their country?”

The truth is that no journalist in Latin America had ever tried to answer thatquestion, as far as I could tell. The reason is that they thought they knew theanswer, and the answer was Americans are hypocrites. That is a huge LatinAmerican stereotype about Americans, which is not always untrue, but it is not ananswer to that question. I would argue that it is such a pervasive stereotype that itserves as an excuse to not report.

The second reason for this Manichaean tendency is that many American journal-ists in Mexico do not realize how different Mexican culture is from U.S. culture.Thereis a tendency, particularly among journalists who have not had a lot of experienceabroad, to think that because we are so close geographically that we are similar.

The result is that some American journalists become frustrated because Mexico’sinstitutions do not act like ours. Instead of trying to understand how their institutions




work, reporters at times wave the finger and say they work badly and that they donot work like ours.

Why does all this matter? If events are painted in this kind of Manichaean way,the media present a cartoon version of other countries. At a moment when the U.S.government has such power in the world, we have a special responsibility to informthe public.

One of the most dramatic cases of where this did not seem to happen was with acompletely different story in another part of the world. I remember years ago whenthe genocide occurred in Rwanda, many Americans believed these were two tribesthat had been killing each other for centuries and were going at it again.

My own impressions changed when I read this book by Philip Gourevitch, a ter-rific journalist, called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our

Families. It was an astonishing book in partbecause it traced the political process inRwanda—a complex system. The book

made it clear this tragedy was not inevitableor simply a replay of past feuds. If Americanshad had a better understanding of events in

Rwanda, maybe there could have been a little more public pressure for interventionto stop the killing.

Obviously, that is going far a field from Mexico. But it just reminded me of howmuch we have a responsibility to go beyond these cartoonish or simplistic images thatare sometimes presented of foreign countries.

If events are painted in this kind of

Manichaean way, the media present a cartoon version of other countries.




Desde mi ultima estancia como corresponsal en Washington, DC hay cosas quehan cambiado y que vale la pena comentar y matizar. Hace cinco años la discusiónpública de los asuntos que interesan a México y a Estados Unidos era aún muyintensa. México estaba en el proceso de vivir una alternancia política encabezadapor Vicente Fox quien llegó a decir en campaña, “que se necesitaba la bendiciónde Estados Unidos para llegar a la Presidencia de México”, o que al menos asíhabía sido hasta entonces. Fox ofrecía cambiar de manera radical la relaciónbilateral de ambos países, además de adoptar junto con Canadá, un esquemapolítico y económico similar al de la Unión Europea.

La propuesta recibió un balde de agua fría en Ottawa y aquí en Washington,cuando el presidente electo Vicente Fox realizó una gira por esas capitales. Noobstante, ya una vez en el gobierno, Fox insistió en modificar drásticamente larelación, proponiendo cambios en la situación migratoria, que fueron conocidoscomo “la enchilada completa”, a raíz de la famosa expresión del entoncesCanciller Jorge Castañeda.

¿Qué hubiera pasado con la propuesta de no haber ocurrido los atentadosterroristas del 11 de septiembre? La respuesta es materia de especulaciones en lasque prefiero no indagar. Tampoco es mi intención hacer una relación de loshechos más visibles de la relación bilateral desde que Fox y Bush tomaron posesiónde sus cargos con menos de dos meses de diferencia, sino apuntar que por esas

fechas, unos meses antes del 11 de septiembre, la relación México/Estados Unidosgeneraba tal interés que dio lugar a la primera gira internacional del PresidenteBush para visitar el rancho de Vicente Fox en Guanajuato.

Hoy el mundo es drásticamente diferente como tambien lo es la coberturaperiodística trans-fronteriza. Como lo menciona Roderic Ai Camp en sucapitulo, existen diferencias entre la forma que cubren acontecimientos similareslos corresponsales estadounidenses enMéxico y los corresponsales Mexicanos enlos Estados Unidos. Habría que agregar labaja de interés que se ha generado en los

medios estadounidenses por México,Latinoamérica, y en un sentido másgeneral, por los países del mundo donde nose genera información relacionada con elterrorismo o la lucha en contra de éste.

Esta falta de interés ha repercutido a su vez en el conocimiento que losmexicanos tenemos de nuestro propio país. Pues si bien no dejo de criticar lasobre-excitación que se produce en muchos medios mexicanos por la publicación

Pascal Beltrán-del-Ríon

El Universal/ La Revistan“Atención Desigual”

Existen diferencias entre la forma quecubren acontecimientos similares los cor-responsales estadounidenses en México ylos corresponsales Mexicanos en losEstados Unidos.




de casi cualquier cosa en medios estadounidenses, también es cierto que éstostienen acceso a información que no está a la mano de la prensa mexicana. Y nome refiero solamente a datos muy confidenciales del gobierno estadounidense,sino incluso, información que el gobierno mexicano, particularmente desde elsexenio de Carlos Salinas de Gortari, ha reservado para su difusión, vía los mediosestadounidenses. Y es que en los medios estadounidenses, hay algo más de pudor para el tratamiento de una filtración que en la televisión mexicana, que es la nuevadestinataria favorita de la información a trasmano.

Asimismo, es indudable que la publicación de notas reveladoras y reportajesque apuntan a la explicación profunda de asuntos de interés público de la relaciónbilateral, provocaban nuevas investigaciones periodísticas y pronunciamientos deun gobierno o de otro, o de ambos, y en ese juego se ayudaba a clarificar lostemas. Por decirlo de algún modo, se acabó el partido de tenis y ahora, cuandomucho, vemos una persona raqueteando en solitario contra una pared.

La nueva realidad no solo produce frustración a los corresponsales

estadounidenses en México. Todos hemos escuchado sus lamentos al ver relegadaen páginas interiores, en el mejor de los casos, notas que antes habrían entrado enla primera plana. Además se ha conducido a una menor discusión de los temasbilaterales y por tanto un menor entendimiento recíproco de nuestra sociedad.Esto es particularmente notorio en la información de carácter político. Lo queantes dábamos por sentado, se da de manera ocasional.

En el último libro del periodista Bob Woodward se ha documentado algo quese especuló en México, pero que muchos periodistas habíamos rechazado por inverosímil. Woodward encontró que el hecho de que el Presidente Vicente Foxhubiera ingresado en el Hospital para practicarse una cirugía, como una forma de

evadir la toma de una decisión importante sobre la guerra en Irak parecía algoabsolutamente fuera de lógica. Aún no podemos decir que el Presidente inventóla operación, pero sí es importante que nos preguntemos que habiéndosecomprometido a devolver la llamada al Presidente Bush para manifestarle cual seríala posición mexicana ante un eventual voto del Consejo de Seguridad, Fox se hayaido al quirófano en el Hospital Militar quizás sin haberlo hecho. Hasta ahora, elPresidente de México no ha reaccionado ante la extrañeza que la súbitadesaparición de Fox produjo en la Casa Blanca.

Habiendo pasado más de un año desde entonces, es justo decir que la únicamanera en que nos podríamos enterar de ese dato, que es de interés público, eramediante una investigación periodística como la de Woodward. Lo mismo sepuede decir del trabajo de un corresponsal mexicano que logró que la Casa Blancale mostrara las transcripciones de otra conversación de Fox (sus asesores deberíandecir que tenga más cuidado con el uso del teléfono), referente al tema del votosobre Cuba en la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la ONU.

Sería muy largo discutir si algunos medios estadounidenses han hecho unaapuesta equivocada al distraer su atención sobre México o si han leído bien lasnecesidades de sus lectores. Lo que podríamos afirmar sin lugar a dudas es que en




éstos dos años y medio ni la relación que se da todos los días de sociedad asociedad, ni la que se da entre instancias de gobierno, ni mucho menos la relaciónbilateral se han detenido. Por ejemplo, muy poca atención han prestado los mediosestadounidenses al hecho de que independientemente de quien gane las eleccionespresidenciales del 2006 en México, el próximo Presidente mexicano podría tener una actitud mucho menos dispuesta a lacooperación de lo que han mostrado losanteriores ocupantes de Los Pinos.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador,Santiago Creel y Roberto Madrazo, los másfirmes prospectos en sus respectivos par-tidos, tienen algo en común: sonprofundamente nacionalistas. Sin decir conello que el nacionalismo sea bueno o que seentienda lo mismo por esa palabra. Yo sé

que casi siempre se impone el pragmatismo y más en una relación que en muchossentidos camina sola, pero en la exploración periodística de las biografías de estostres personajes, ayudaría a una mejor comprensión por parte de la sociedad esta-dounidense de los matices en la actitud del próximo Presidente mexicano hacia elpaís vecino del norte.

Por su parte, los medios mexicanos tampoco parecen tomar muy en serio laexploración del proceso político estadounidense, a menos de que tenga que ver directamente con México y los asuntos bilaterales más discutidos. Es decir, elnarcotráfico, la migración y el comercio, o que se refuercen los prejuicios quemuchos mexicanos comparten en su visión hacia Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo,

que ellos también hacen fraudes electorales y son tan corruptos como nosotros.Bueno, en éste aspecto, comparto totalmente lo escrito por Mary Beth Sheridanen cuanto a los estereotipos que poco nos ayudan en el trabajo periodístico y acomprender mejor nuestras respectivas sociedades, o de una manera más reciente,que tenga que ver con la guerra de Irak.

No existe reportaje alguno sobre la forma (al estilo AMWAY) en la que se estádisputando la campaña presidencial. Realidad que sin duda acabará imponiéndoseen México, donde se prevé una contienda electoral tan cerrada con la que se viveen Estados Unidos, nada más que entre tres partidos. Allá en política son un pocomenos maniqueos.

Otro tema importante actualmente en la encrucijada es el de la crecientecomunidad de origen mexicano en los Estados Unidos. Esto se refiere a lorelacionado con su participación política en México, el reconocimiento pleno desu derecho al voto y la enorme complicación técnica y política de realizar una jornada electoral en territorio extranjero.Es difícil entender que dadas las enormesrepercusiones que tendría la reglamentación de una realidad reconocida por laConstitución mexicana, los medios de México y Estados Unidos se contentenhasta ahora, con una cobertura a medias.

Un punto de optimismo es el profesionalis-mo que encuentro entre muchos corre-sponsales de uno y otro lado de la fronteragenuinamente interesados e informadossobre temas de interés público que afectana nuestros países y a la relación bilateral.




Como recordatorio de que México debe estar en la agenda de los mediosestadounidenses y viceversa, se ha dado el anuncio de la suspensión del intercam-bio de información financiera entre los dos países, una decisión de la que me per-mito dudar simplemente por la necesidad objetiva de que fluyan las alertas de unpaís a otro, ya que de lo contrario los más beneficiados serían los narcotraficantes.

Un punto de optimismo es el profesionalismo que encuentro entre muchoscorresponsales de uno y otro lado de la frontera genuinamente interesados e infor-mados sobre temas de interés público que afectan a nuestros países y a la relaciónbilateral. Quizá, con la realización de foros como éste y algo de paciencia, losmedios de México y Estados Unidos ofrezcan una cobertura digna de unainterrelación de éstos dos vecinos que no va a cesar de transformarse en espera deque Estados Unidos encuentre la mejor forma de poner fin al terrorismo.




The principal idea I would like to present is this: in an era of mass immigration, theU.S.-Mexico relationship is too important and too rich to be covered only fromWashington, New York, and Los Angeles. While Mexico has wonderful journalis-tic talent in the United States, too often that talent is confined to the major citiesand does not travel to other parts of the country. Unfortunately, the Mexican pressgives scant attention to stories that develop in the interior of the country.

There has been a fundamental shift in Mexican migration to the United States,away from the pattern of twenty or so years ago. Back then, most Mexicanmigrants came from four states: Zacatecas, Michoacán, Jalisco, and Guanajuato.Most of them were headed to a few states north of the border, primarilyCalifornia, Texas, and Illinois. INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geográficae Informática) and CONAPO (Consejo Nacional de Población) have establishedthat about 95% of the Mexican municipalities are now migrant sending areas.Meanwhile, the Urban Institute has docu-mented that these new migrants havefanned out across the United States, havingbig effects in states such as North Carolina,Georgia, Illinois, Arkansas, and even Iowa,Utah, and Colorado. States like Chiapas andVeracruz, who just a decade ago sent few immigrants to the United States, are now

seeing an extraordinary exodus that is bringing enormous changes not only to thecommunities from which the migrants are leaving but also to receiving communi-ties in states like Indiana, North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia.

It is unfortunate that the talents of a reporter like José “Pepe” Carreño, whomI call Mexico’s unofficial ambassador to the United States, are not applied to thisstory. Pepe knows the United States and understands the American way of think-ing. I think Mexican readers would benefit greatly if Pepe were able to travel thecountry, rather than writing mostly from within Washington DC.

At the other end of the equation, there is more of an effort by the Americanpress in Mexico to cover the story of these new immigration patterns, these new

immigrant-sending areas. I suppose the difference is primarily a matter of resources. I know there is no lack of will among Mexican reporters to get out andcover the story. Rather, I think we should make an appeal to those who manageMexico’s largest media, calling on them to commit the money and the resourcesto cover the story. Thus far they have not made that commitment. That is a seri-ous failure, with unfortunate consequences in both countries.

I cannot think of a relationship that is more interesting than the U.S.-Mexicorelationship. I had a chance to get to know Jeff Davidow when he was Ambassador

Jerry Kammern

Copley News Service n“Towards Fair and Honest Reporting”

The U.S.-Mexico relationship is too important and too rich to be covered only fromWashington, New York, and Los Angeles.




of the United States to Mexico. I recently worked with him on his book, whichis a memoir about his experiences in Mexico. Its title is El Oso y el Puercoespín,or in English,The U.S. and Mexico:The Bear and the Porcupine . In this metaphor of therelationship, the United States is a big, lumbering, sometimes clumsy bear andMexico is the sometimes defensive and feisty porcupine. Jeff gives particular atten-tion to that portion of the Mexican political class whose behavior is consistentlyand reflexively anti-gringo.

In one passage, he writes about what happened after September 11th, whenthere was such trauma in the States and we were all a bit numb and wonderingwhat was going to happen next. He talks about other countries reaching out andgiving us an abrazo. There was an interesting contrast between Mexico andCanada, which sometimes defines its identity by counting the ways in which it isdifferent from the United States. However, after the attacks in New York andWashington, the Canadian people and the government responded with greatwarmth and real compassion. Meanwhile, in Mexico, as Jeff points out, there was

a hand-wringing debate about how to respond. One of the defining momentscame when Carlos Fuentes insisted “no somos achichincles”—we are not theAmericans’ lackeys.

This is what Jeff wrote:

I was struck by a great sad irony in the tangled mess of misstatements, misunder-standings, and miscues that constituted the Mexican public response to September 11th.Mexicans, even those who have a fondness for the United States and think theytruly understand us, believe that the greatest difference between our two cultures is that those of us north of the border are hardheaded, sharp-elbowed, flinty, and unsenti-

mental.Those who live south of the border on the other hand, are graced by Latin gentility, compassion, and sentimentality.The tragedy of September 11 was that most Mexicans failed to understand that what we most wanted from them in our lowest moment was nothing more than an expression of solidarity and concern.All we need-ed was a gesture of sympathy.A traditional Mexican abrazo, a hug would have suf- ficed.Confined and confused as they were by their own complexes and political games,they were unable to deliver.

I think that is a fair representation of the debate in Mexico. You must keep inmind that President Fox had visited Washington just a few days before the attacks.In his address to Congress during the visit, Fox invoked the word “trust” 26 times,calling for a new era of cooperation and friendship. After the attacks, as the debateroared in Mexico, Fox was a “desaparecido,” he didn’t want to get involved andbe tagged as pro-gringo. Eventually he came around and made a trip toWashington and New York. However, some real damage was done to the rela-tionship by this whole series of events.

I remember reading, a year after September 11th, a story in Reforma quoting aman who was identified as a “sociologo” and “analista” who spoke in the most




outrageous terms about gringos having no culture. He dismissed people in theU.S. as “cursi,” as vulgar. He actually said that we had spent two hundred years“cultivando esta vulgaridad.”To me, what was surprising was that this sort of blan-ket put-down and hostility by someone who was not properly identified wasacceptable in a respected Mexican newspaper. The fact that it was considered anacceptable criticism said a lot about how the United States is defined. Can youimagine if such a story appeared in The Washington Post or The New York Times?Can you imagine the reaction in Mexico if that were to happen? I think Mexicanswould be rightfully outraged.

In the Spanish-language press, too oftenthe story of immigration is played as a melo-drama in which there is a clearly identifiedgood guy, the Mexican migrant, and a clear-ly identified bad guy, American society.There is not much effort to understand that

some Americans have concerns about theeffects of so much immigration that havenothing to do with racism or xenophobia.Steve Lopez, who is the star columnist for The Los Angeles Times, talked about thisroughly a year ago. In the following quote he says, “Look we have gained tremen-dously from immigration, but let’s face the fact that there are some issues that needto be addressed.”

Take just about any problem in California and the chief cause goes unmentioned.Education is a disaster, traffic is a nightmare, we have got a water supply crisis, the

housing shortage is chronic, the health care system is so overwhelmed that the ambu-lances often cannot unload the emergency room patients, our shore is polluted, south-ern California leads the nation in beach closures.Why? Because 34 million people live here and were are growing by one person every minute.”

He continues,

California has been uniquely enriched by immigration, but if we do not have enough schools today and many of the existing ones are teaching phonics to highschool students, for crying out loud, how big of a black hole would we fall into whenthe population hits an anticipated 50 million in the year 2025?”

These are important questions that need to be addressed in an open, honestdebate. However, a lot of people in California are cowed and intimidated becausethey do not want to appear to be xenophobic or racist or anti-immigrant. Thatreally bothers me. Whenever someone raises concerns about immigration, somepeople want to label them “anti-immigrant” or “xenophobic”or “racist”. What agreat way to cut off debate! The idea is basically: if you think that, you must be

I think journalists have the responsibility toface issues head-on, to encourage aninformed, lively, feisty—if necessary—debate. Debates, by definition, involve dis-agreements and journalism has the duty of

ensuring that we have well-informed dis-agreements.




racist, so I am not even talking with you. I think journalists have the responsibil-ity to face issues head-on, to encourage an informed, lively, feisty—if neces-sary—debate. Debates, by definition, involve disagreements and journalism hasthe duty of ensuring that we have well-informed disagreements. As things arenow in too much reporting on immigration, there is an effort to suppress debate.Even Jorge Ramos, a very talented journalist, has written along these lines in hisbook La Otra Cara de América. He says that concerns about the numbers of immi-grants are based on pura xenofobia, puro racismo. This is too big an issue to be triv-ialized and marginalized in that manner.

I would like to touch just briefly on Mexican coverage of the famous“Cacería”of migrants in Arizona. I was in Mexico in the summer of 2000, whenthat story was huge news in the area. As someone who is from Arizona, it waspainful to see stories that created the impression that those American hunters wereshooting immigrants like deer with high-power rifles. That was not true. No onewas shot by any of the ranchers. It was perfectly fair to criticize the Arizona ranch-

ers who were arresting immigrants, to say they were raising tensions by taking thelaw into their hands. However, it was ridiculous and journalistically irresponsi-ble to sensationalize the story in a way that fit the most negative stereotypes aboutAmericans who are upset about illegal immigration.

As reporters, we have a fundamental obligation when we cover complex sto-ries. We have an obligation not only to those for whom we write, our readers, butalso to those about whom we write. These people should see in our stories a fair presentation of their arguments and concerns. Too often, when I read theMexican press coverage of immigration, I do not recognize complex argumentsthat challenge convenient stereotypes. That is why I think reporters like Jose

Carreño should be given the resources and the mission to get out into this big,complex country and cover the story. These issues are too big and the two coun-tries are too important to each other to be covered superficially and only from themajor cities. We need to cover each other in a more realistic and more serious way.



Quiero decir que suscribo mucho, sino todo, lo expuesto por Jerry Kammer ensu capítulo, en términos de la relación bilateral y de las obvias limitaciones quetiene la prensa en México. Pero creo también que estamos dejando de lado unaparte importante—en lo que se refiere a las actitudes de la prensa de los EstadosUnidos, que ciertamente es más profesional y con más recursos que la prensaMexicana, cabe mencionar que esto obedece también a características propias, deuna sociedad y cultura determinada tiene también sus propios estereotipos.

Hace algunos años hubo un corresponsal en México a quien se le encargoescribir un reportaje sobre la selección mexicana de fútbol y en su descripcióndijo: “los colores de la selección mexicana de fútbol son: verde, blanco y anaranjado”y el editor le respondió: “pero entiendo que es verde, blanco y rojo. La pren-sa Mexicana dice que es verde, blanco y rojo, los mexicanos insisten que es verde,blanco y rojo y tu dices que es verde, blanco y anaranjado.” El corresponsalrespondió: “I call it as I see it, lo digo como lo veo.”

Ese tipo de actitudes, aunque no es general y es más la excepción que la regla,en alguna forma confirma algunos de los problemas que mencioné en la intro-ducción sobre el punto de vista de la prensa de los Estados Unidos respecto aMéxico. Quizás no tanto la prensa basada en la Ciudad de México como la pren-sa que recién llega o que cubre desde los Estados Unidos. Ciertamente como diceKammer, la prensa de los Estados Unidos tiende a manejarse con mucho más

cuidado que la prensa mexicana respecto a una serie de temas como por ejemploel de la migración.

Sin embargo, la tragedia de la prensa de los Estados Unidos es que por lo menosla prensa impresa ya no es la que impone la agenda de discusiones de debates enlos Estados Unidos, sino son los programas de radio, especialmente los llamados“talk shows,” los programas de controversia, que por alguna razón están dirigidosen su mayoría por locutores de derecha. Estos locutores ciertamente están en suderecho de expresarse y de tener las opiniones que deseen pero que en algunoscasos están vinculados no solamente con gente de opiniones de derecha sino conindividuos que son parte de grupos racistas y grupos neonazis y supremacistas

blancos. Los cuales agravan el problema que se refleja en el debate sobre emi-gración entre los Estados Unidos respecto a México.Resultaría muy fácil en todo caso y muy simple criticar a la prensa de los

Estados Unidos en términos de lo que está pasando ahora, sobre todo después del11 septiembre y de la guerra de Irak. Creo que no faltan libros, ni tampoco unacolección impresionante de reportes de estudios que hablen de las faltas de la pren-sa de los Estados Unidos en términos de cobertura o términos de información. Locierto es que la prensa de los Estados Unidos se encuentra ante una situación


José Carreñon

El Universal n“Hacia la imparcialidad y la Verdad”



interesante, tal vez algo que no se veía desde Vietnam, probablemente quizás antesde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, esto es, nos encontramos frente a un país ataca-do, sitiado, golpeado en su seguridad y en su sociedad, la cual al mismo tiempoestá temerosa y deseosa de encontrar quien le pague los destrozos. Simplementealgunos reportes se han enfocado correcta o incorrectamente en general sobre losmusulmanes, otros lo han hecho sobre los árabes, pero muchos también se hanenfocado simplemente sobre los inmigrantes en general. Actualmente existe en losEstados Unidos un enorme debate sobre migración, el cual desafortunadamentese encuentra dominado por la derecha.

Al margen de esto, muchos de los problemas descritos por Kammer desde lasguerras burocráticas de la DEA y de otros organismos de Estados Unidos enrelación con México a preconcepciones que igual la prensa de los Estados Unidostiene respecto a México, como México respecto a los Estados Unidos, están pre-sentes desde hace mucho en la relación bilateral. Por ejemplo, en Ciudad Juárez,Chihuahua hace cuatro años, cuando se dio la gran noticia de la posible existen-

cia de un cementerio clandestino con 200 personas, CBS arribó para hacer unatransmisión en vivo desde el lugar al margen de que la historia real estaba en otrolado. Por otro lado—el cementerio nunca se encontró y la historia simplementedesapareció. Pero lo importante era no sólo la idea del cementerio clandestino enCiudad Juárez, sino la idea de que en la frontera con México: “anything goes.” Laidea de que cualquier cosa puede pasar en México si tienes paciencia para encon-trarlo es una preconcepción de los Estados Unidos que se encuentra desde el sigloXIX en la cultura y literatura popular de ese país y que ha perpetuado hasta ahora.Es casi una verdad, México es tan corrupto y desorganizado que todo puede pasar y sin embargo, la realidad es suficientemente dura como para que necesitemos que

nos inventen más cosas de las que ya tenemos y la realidad es esa.Otra importante preconcepción es que si a los mexicanos no nos gusta hablar o exhibir apoyo por los Estados Unidos, a los americanos simplemente no lesinteresa hablar de la relación con México, no saben que existe, es algo que estaahí simplemente pero que se dan cuenta eventualmente cuando sale curiosamentetal vez algo en las noticias o que simplemente ni siquiera se acuerdan que existe.

Hay una indiferencia extraordinaria en el grueso de la gente y en el grueso dela población. La prensa de los Estados Unidos por falta de espacio o recursos,excepto los grandes medios, (The New York Times,The Washington Post, L.A.Times,The Dallas Morning News, etc.,) realmente no tienen mayor interés en desarrollar o presentar su información. Sin embargo cabe mencionar un interesante reportaje del Washington Post sobre prisiones en México. Quizás Kevin Sullivan pudierair de país en país haciendo reportajes sobre prisiones porque desafortunadamenteestán en la misma situación en casi todos lados. Otro caso interesante relacionadocon las guerras burocráticas de Washington, es el hecho de que Mary Jordan esta-ba ahí cuando Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo fue apresado. Por un lado, ciertamentedijeron que no solo era un hombre vinculado con narcotraficantes, sino que habíasido de hecho denunciado por otros narcotraficantes. Lo que dijo o no en un tono

44 Writing Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border



tan bajo que a nadie le preocupó fue que la D.E.A estaba al tanto de que GutiérrezRebollo estaba vinculado con narcotraficantes y no se le informó a otras partes delgobierno de los Estados Unidos, concretamente al (entonces czar antidrogas)General Barry McCaffrey porque McCaffrey estaba en una guerra burocrática conla D.E.A por el control de las actividades de la D.E.A en Washington.

Hace tiempo salió a la luz pública un reporte del CSIS (Center for Strategicand International Studies) acerca de los trabajos realizados hace tres años sobre loque pasaría en diferentes escenarios electorales en México. En uno de sus capítu-los, Howard Wiarda menciona que en términos reales se desconocen las even-tuales actitudes o respuestas de los Estados Unidos ya que existen 67 políticas deEstados Unidos hacia México, 67 políticas reflejadas por cada departamento y por cada agencia que a su vez se filtran a la prensa.

Cada quien tiene su medio predilecto de informar, ya sea dentro de los EstadosUnidos, como corresponsal en México, o a través de los periódicos esta-dounidenses que frecuentemente se contraponen entre si. Aún no se ha examina-

do el efecto de ésta guerra burocrática dentro de los Estados Unidos y sólo exis-ten vagos análisis sobre su impacto en la vida política de los Estados Unidos. SiMéxico es, como muchos afirman dentro del gobierno estadounidense, la relaciónmás importante de los Estados Unidos, entonces, los Estados Unidos y la prensaestadounidense están perdiéndose un cambio impresionante.

Notes1. Reporters from The Washington Post, Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan wrote Pulitzer

prize pieces on Mexico’s prisons




SECTION 3SECCIÓN 3

El Entendimiento de Nuestras Sociedades

Understanding Each Other’s Society






I was born in Durango, Mexico. I was raised in California and graduated fromthe University of Texas at El Paso. You cannot get more bilingual, more bi-cul-tural, or gain more empathy than that. But I am far from being an expert. I can-not even get the art of greeting people right.

Two weeks ago, I was in Ciudad Juarez. I saw an old friend and I had justlanded from Mexico City, from the colorful language of Coyoacán andCondesa. I said, “qué onda, guey?” He looked at me like he was about to blowmy brains out. So I caught myself and said, “como está compadre ?” Things wereokay. When I go back to El Paso, I say, “what up bro?” On other occasionsthough, when I politely say “buenos días, Licenciado,” the response is, “ese saludoes para rateros.”

For most of my career in journalism, ten of those years at the The DallasMorning News, I have grappled with that very issue, understanding two societies.The Dallas Morning News has one of the largest, if not the largest, foreignbureaus in Mexico City. We have five print reporters and one TV correspon-dent. Mexico, to us, is a very local story.

We have identified three separate core groups that generally represent thebulk of what we think is our Mexican readership, and among us we jokinglyrefer to them as the “George W. Bush profile.” They hate elites, so they are not

much into reading the elite coverage.First, we have the regular Texan, who is more interested in economics, trends,

and tourism stories. They like politics, but usually related to how it impacts their businesses. Second, we have a very large Mexican-American population. Thereaders are very interested in Mexico, butin a very vicarious way. It is the land of their ancestors, and like the Texans they arealso very interested in feature stories. Travelstories are very big because of the proxim-ity to places like Cancun, San Miguel de

Allende, et cetera.Finally, there are the people that we call“el México de allá” or “el México deacá”—that is the Mexicans living abroad.We have an interesting mix in North Texas, a lot of campesinos, but also a lot of people that we call urban immigrants. These are people who are putting food onthe table. They are trying to assimilate, but remain very nostalgic, and not justnostalgic, but also very involved in the politics of back home. They are interested

Alfredo Corchadon

The Dallas Morning Newsn“Constructing Identities:n

La Verdad Siempre es Mas o Menos”

We have identified three separate coregroups that generally represent the bulk ofwhat we think is our Mexican readership,and among us we jokingly refer to them as the “George W. Bush profile.” They hate

elites, so they are not much into reading the elite coverage.



50 Section 3 I Understanding Each Other’s Society

in the everyday politics, the economy, but they are not interested in the theater of Mexico City or Washington, D.C. They want to know what’s happening intheir states, whether it is Guanajuato, Durango, Chihuahua, San Luis Potosí or Michoacán. It is sort of like having a large American population, for example, say,in France or something, except that this population keeps growing and growingand growing.

Recently, The Dallas Morning News launched two new products: Al Día, aSpanish-language daily that appears from Monday through Saturday, and Quick, acondensed version of The Dallas Morning Newspaper. It is similar to the Express inWashington DC.

The target audience for both is vastly different, but they both agree on onething, and that is that they really do not care that much about policymakers ineither Mexico City or Washington, D.C. Case in point: for nearly three years Iwas based right here in D.C., where my beat was covering U.S.-Latin Americanpolicy. Mexico, of course, was the most important part of the beat. That changed

after September 11, when the flourishing relationship between Fox and Bush wasput on hold.

During my time here, I learned that the political theater is not that much dif-ferent from the one being played out in Mexico City. That is to say Washingtonhas its Beltway, Mexico City has its añillo periférico decorated with “dis-tribuidores” that Andrés Manuel López Obrador is currently building, along withhis presidential aspirations.

Washington is consumed by war, the books we read are “Against All Enemies”and “Plan of Attack.” Mexicans are consumed by former President Miguel de laMadrid’s book or the latest novel or book about first lady Marta Sahagún. The

point is that neither side is really as engaged as we like to believe. What is impor-tant is bringing the story home to the readers. It is hard enough to get U.S. read-ers interested in their own election this November. Imagine writing about candi-dates posturing for Mexico’s race in 2006.

It is not that Americans do not like reading juicy stories about corrupt politi-cians caught red-handed stuffing money into their pockets, as was the case recent-ly with the PRD and el Partido Verde.However, readers overwhelmingly ask onlyone question: ‘what does it mean to me?’ or, more importantly, ‘how does itimpact me?’. For example, as part of our coverage on Iraq we not only had a cor-respondent in Baghdad, but we also had coverage out of Mexico. We actuallywent to communities in Zacatecas and Guanajuato where we thought that theywould have sons of immigrants fighting in Iraq. Sure enough, we found somepeople in Zacatecas.

Last fall, I was in the middle of working on what I thought was a pretty goodstory, about the return of the budding friendship between President Bush andPresident Fox. Both men had lunch together at the United Nations and there wasa lot of talk about the two of them meeting in Thailand since the migration talkswere back on.




My editor did not truly like the story. I think we cut it. It was supposed to bea 35-inch story. We cut it down to about 14 inches instead because we were aboutto launch Al Día and they were interested in a story about remittances, followingthe money trail on both sides of the border. This is a story I have also coveredextensively. In this case, however, the stories would run in both The DallasMorning News and Al Día. A colleague of mine in Dallas would identify certain fam-ilies, groups, or foundations that weresending money back home. My job was totry to bridge the gap and follow the moneyin Mexico and try to explain how themoney was spent.

In the end, much to my surprise, the sto-ries were a huge success. We learned a cou-ple of things from that experience. The

Dallas Morning News has an agreement withat least 19 papers, including AM León. It was interesting that they ran our story andtheir relatives, in this case in Guanajuato, were able to communicate with the peo-ple we had interviewed in Dallas and Fort Worth. It was interesting to them becausethey were quite taken by the sacrifice that these people make in sending money toMexico. They were also interested in how remittances are now almost as large of arevenue source to Mexico as oil is.

Meanwhile, the immigrants we interviewed in Dallas were very interested inhow their money was being spent and how trustworthy or corrupt the local politi-cians were who were allegedly working on their projects. They were also interested

in how many jobs their money was creating. In the end, they wanted to know whowas accountable.Equally interesting for us was the reaction from our Anglo readers who read the

stories in The Dallas Morning News. Whenever you write stories on immigration,there is always some sort of an organized response from the anti-immigrant move-ment and so you get all these letters. In this case, some of the reactions from theTexans or the Anglos were interesting. They were quite surprised to see how inter-twined Mexican communities were with the Texas economy and how hundreds of communities across Mexico are influenced by political and economic decisionsmade in either Austin or in Washington.

Over the years, I think I have learned that in order to do my job more profes-sionally, especially since I am a bi-national reporter, is to try to challenge myself inmy own preconceived notions about how this relationship works, how the twosocieties relate, and challenge myself to go beyond stereotypes. I will give you acouple examples.

I am often haunted by the words of Chiquilín. He is a small-time hustler in ElPaso. Back in El Paso, my family has a small, little restaurant called Freddy’s Cafe.It used to be three blocks from the International Bridge. Because of this, we had

Over the years, I think I have learned thatin order to do my job more professionally,especially since I am a bi-nationalreporter, is to try to challenge myself in myown preconceived notions about how thisrelationship works, how the two societiesrelate, and challenge myself to go beyondstereotypes.




an assortment of different characters that would visit our restaurant. At that time,I was still a waiter. I was trying to get myself through college studying journalism.

Chiquilín was one of these interesting characters. He began his illustriouscareer by smuggling goods into Mexico. When GATT and NAFTA came along,Chiquilín turned to smuggling people, drugs, and nowadays, he just told merecently, cheap Viagra and other medications to the United States.

When he found out that I was studying journalism, he once gave me this time-less advice. He said “ni somos tan malos como nos pintan, ni los gringos son tanbuenos como se creen; no hay ni blanco ni negro, la verdad siempre es mas omenos.”1 He was also a poet.

Since last fall, I have been covering the issue of the murdered women inCiudad Juarez. Chiquilín’s words recently came back to haunt me. As I beganwhat I believed was the most challenging assignment of my career, there was oneconstant question I kept hearing from readers and even editors. These murders arehappening just right across the river from El Paso. We are talking about just a few

steps from the U.S. border. Why are the U.S. authorities not more involved? Whyis the FBI, the DEA, or ICE not helping out? If they were—and this was kind of a consensus—these murders would be solved in no time. The drumbeat was soloud that even I started to believe it.

Then last January, Mexican authorities discovered that 12 bodies of drug traf-fickers were discovered in the backyard of a middle-class home in Juarez.Immediately, speculation ran rampant that drug lords protecting their turf werekilling each other. I wrote a few stories and, like many here, I felt jaded—anoth-er story about drug trafficking. A deeper look, however, revealed that, yes, indeedthe killings were drug-related, but in this case were either supervised or partly

committed by a U.S.-paid informant. In addition, the ICE failed to notifyMexican authorities or even its own counterpart, DEA, in El Paso or Washington.This is happening right as we talk about homeland security. Imagine if the samething had happened and the roles were reversed, if a Mexican informant was inthe United States.

Last week, I asked one U.S. official what the biggest challenge was in pursuingthe day-to-day relationship with Mexico. He said, “Latins are shamelessly honestabout their dishonesty, and Anglos are shamelessly dishonest about their honesty.One side is totally shameful; the other side is totally hypocritical. This has hob-bled the building of institutional trust between law enforcement on both sides.”El Chiquilín was not so wrong after all.

Notes1. “We are not as bad as they portray us, nor are the gringos as good as they think; there

is no black or white; the truth is always more or less…”




There is a great deal of information about the United States in Mexico. In fact, Iwould argue that the average person in Mexico knows a lot more about his or her northern neighbors than the average person in the United States knows about hisor her neighbors to the south. This is a result of the combination of a rich appre-ciation of history within Mexican culture, which is not available in the UnitedStates, together with the testimonials of the millions of people who travel to theUnited States every year. Of course, it (also?) reflects the enormous economicimportance of the United States to Mexico.

That said, the two of us in the U.S.bureau of La Jornada struggle with many of the same issues and contradictions that our colleagues in the other Mexican newspapersconfront. The unique situation of the La Jornada bureau, which combines one personwho grew up in Mexico and one person from the United States, provides anexample of a different approach to the challenge of providing readers with a broad-er understanding of the United States, one that hopefully goes beyond Hollywoodand press conferences in Washington.

Most of the good newspapers in Mexico are trying to meet this challenge, in dif-ferent ways and to varying degrees of success. Our coverage starts with the premise

that if the Associated Press (AP) has 150 reporters in Washington, then, as good as weare, we might not be able to uncover much more than they have on general news sto-ries from Washington.The AP is not the only wire service that most major newspa-pers in Mexico use. In addition, many Mexican newspapers use content from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal and other U.S.papers. Our newspaper sup-plements this coverage with content from major European news organizations as well.

The challenge we face every day is figuring out which stories to leave to thewires and which to attempt to develop more deeply ourselves. That decision, of course, is ultimately made in Mexico City, but we provide input and “sell” certainstories from this country. The structure of the La Jornada bureau biases its reporters

against just covering bilateral relationships as a dialogue of political elites and diplo-mats from Washington.It is relatively easy for any good reporter, and all of the major newspapers in

Mexico have very good reporters covering the United States, to cover the typicalstories about the bilateral relationship—we know what we have to write aboutannouncements made in Washington or Mexico City. We know the sources andthe script changes very little from day to day. The challenge is figuring out how toget beyond that and figuring out, as Alfredo Corchado mentions in his chapter,

Jim Casonn

La Jornadan“Writing in Shades of Gray”

The challenge we face every day is figuring

out which stories to leave to the wires andwhich to attempt to develop more deeplyourselves.




what does it mean to our readers and how does it affect them? I would add thatfiguring out how a story fits in with the perspectives our readers bring to any storyabout the United States is also important.

Readers in Mexico have a tremendous amount of knowledge of the UnitedStates, and a perspective. Writing with awareness of that knowledge and at thesame time attempting to deepen readers’ understanding of the United States, of

its people and of its dynamics, is extreme-ly difficult.Added to that, all journalists inMexico and the United States confrontthe challenge of how to persuade their editors that their stories warrant inclusionin a newspaper that is often full to thepoint of bursting with news. Almost everyMexican newspaper carries news of theUnited States every day, but most editors

feel compelled to devote space to the “main” story—usually defined as the pro-nouncements of elites (regardless of whether or not these elites have been sayingthe same thing, more or less, for the last year).

The more complex and exciting stories for our bureau, the stories with theshades of gray, are often also the stories that seem less pressing on a day-to-daybasis for editors facing the daily deadline and worrying about what the compe-tition will be reporting. I’m proud to work for La Jornada, because they havealways made room for these stories. The first story I wrote for La Jornada was aone-week investigation of how the Christian Coalition took over the TexasRepublican Party.

All of the journalists that cover this beat face competitive pressures. This ishealthy in general, as it forces reporters to develop strong stories with compellingstory lines. But from where I sit, I would never want to have to be the editor whohas to make that decision—each day trying to ensure that your newspaper carriesthe news that all the competition is carrying (so the paper does not “miss” anystory), and at the same time trying to provide readers with a broader understand-ing beyond the day-to-day headlines.

One other note on the pressures journalists face: there is always a lot of talkabout journalists breaking stereotypes, attempting to cover issues more complete-ly. But I think we also have to acknowledge that journalists are human beings. TheU.S. bureau of La Jornada is relatively privileged, we have from what I can tell,extraordinary support from our newspaper and they often publish our featurepieces on the front pages of the newspaper.

Most journalists like to see their work on the front page or on the back page.So if a reporter writes a lot of stories that do not appear in those places, it has asubtle pressure on journalists because it begins to push them to write stories thatwill make a front page headline. Yes, we can all aspire to the great heights of jour-nalism, but I think those pressures exist in our lives.

The more complex and exciting stories forour bureau, the stories with the shades ofgray, are often also the stories that seem lesspressing on a day-to-day basis for editorsfacing the daily deadline and worrying aboutwhat the competition will be reporting.




The Mexican press has covered a lot of these stories about the shade of gray,the beyond Washington and Hollywood stories. Unfortunately, more often thannot, you have to dig very deeply to find them. Otherwise, they are not coveredas regularly as the mind-dulling promises from politicians in Washington of allstripes that they love Mexico, that this is the most important relationship theUnited States has with any foreign country, and that no country has a closer relationship with the United States than Mexico (assertions which, of course,are not true).

By way of illustration, I would like to offer a couple of examples. One is aninterview we did with ranchers in Arizona several years ago when these sameindividuals were portrayed in the Mexican media as hunting migrants. We pub-lished a story that attempted to understand the point of view of the ranchers, theproblems they were confronting.

One rancher, a leader of the group “hunting”migrants, explained that undoc-umented migrants had cut water lines running from large 600 gallons tanks five

or six times. Eventually, he put a tap in the line, hoping that the migrants mighttake a little water and then close the tap without draining the tank. But, heclaimed, some migrants would just leave the tap open. And with the water gone,his cattle and livelihood were in danger. When these ranchers called (what wasthen) the INS, they did not do anything about it. Washington did not do anythingabout it. In that situation, the ranchers decided to take the law into their ownhands and attempt to “detain” the people crossing their farms.

La Jornada published that interview on the front page. In the interview, therancher criticized Washington for doing nothing and also criticized the Mexicangovernment for failing to develop an economy that could support its own people.

Another story was about Operation Vanguard in Nebraska. A lot of people inthe United States have covered this story, but less in Mexico. Operation Vanguardwas an INS program, an interior enforcement program that was actually, despitewhat the human rights groups say, still quite humane in the context of inhumanelaws. It was a program to test the Social Security numbers that people gave their employers and then to send letters to the people whose Social Security numbersdid not match Social Security’s records.

If the federal government’s law is to improve interior enforcement—if you actu-ally want to follow what the laws of the United States are right now, then this ispart of following that. In contrast to the sudden raids that caused people to misswork and disappear or get sent back to Mexico from one day to the next, this wasan attempt by the INS to develop a less painful procedure. The INS said, we aregoing to look at these Social Security numbers and we are going to send people aletter. Well, guess what? In the meatpacking companies, 40 percent of their employ-ees just stopped showing up to work because they knew what was happening. As amigrant, would you rather go to work one day, get arrested and deported withouta chance to tell your family? Or would you rather hear that your employment isbeing checked and have a chance to disappear and look for work elsewhere?




In effect, Operation Vanguard put the pressure on the employers more than theemployees. But you can imagine how long that lasted.The Republican delegationfrom Nebraska, in the space of one year, went from demanding more action fromthe INS to saying, ‘get out of here, suspend Vanguard, do not ever try to do thisagain.’ The meat packing companies were telling them, ‘Hey, this OperationVanguard is killing us, we cannot afford this.’

I am not endorsing Operation Vanguard. Let me be clear here before I get introuble. But it was an attempt to respond to a problem and respond to criticismsfrom human rights groups—and that is a great story for us, and one that we spent

a week covering in Nebraska. It is a storythat helped our readers understand some-thing that is very important in this coun-try, which is the hypocrisy of immigra-tion policy.

Of course, reporting about the United

States is an impossible task. There are lotsmore stories that the Mexican press could

be pulling out and yet we do not, whether it is because we are not sufficientlycapable writers or it is because of other institutional constraints.

I would argue it is not because journalists do not know the stories are there,or that the stories of individual people in the United States are (not) sufficientlyinteresting for Mexican readers. I have seen in El Universal and in lots of differentpapers in Mexico profiles of individual people from the United States. They donot get the prominence that they should in Mexico, but they are there. Ironically,for the much-maligned television, it is almost easier to do those personal profiles

than it is in the print paper, where your editor is always trying to get a lead thatthe reader can connect to.The solution La Jornada has developed is to ensure that they do not let the two

correspondents work full-time in Washington. There are tensions in this relation-ship of course, and after 9-11 all of the media spent a lot of time in Washington.But the structural arrangement at La Jornada at least gives us a bias against this belt-way journalism.

Of course, covering Washington is part of the story. But one of the tendencieswe all fight in the Mexican press is the story that gives the impression that Mexicois on the front burner, or is the main story in Washington all the time. We see thisall the time. If Mexico is one sentence in a Congressional hearing, even if it issome subcommittee of the foreign affairs committee, which has no power at all,it becomes the front-page banner headline in Mexico. Sometimes this is justifiedbecause members of Congress on occasion provide less nuanced and in some casesmore accurate representations of parts of the debate about the bilateral relation-ship. But other times it is a distortion that ill serves the readers.

One big change I have seen in all of the Mexican media over the last decadeis that there is much more of an effort to put stories in context. You may not see

One big change I have seen in all of theMexican media over the last decade is that there is much more of an effort to put storiesin context. You may not see it in the headline,

but you will see it in the first few paragraphs.




it in the headline, but you will see it in the first few paragraphs, whether you arereading El Universal, El Financiero, La Reforma or La Jornada, among others.

In the same way that our colleagues from U.S. newspapers struggle to cover Mexico, reporters are often left searching for someone who will talk on the recordabout difficult issues. That is how we end up at the doors of the Mexico expertsin DC, who are always ready to give an opinion about how decisions are madeabout Mexico. The problem is that, in quoting these experts, the readers inMexico again get an incorrect impression about the general level of knowledgeabout Mexico in the U.S. government.

There are people who know a great deal about Mexico in the U.S. government.I would argue, however, that when something becomes a crisis, decisions are madeby people who know very little about Mexico. For this reason, I often seek outpeople in the State Department and in the White House who are higher up in thebureaucracy, but do not know much about Mexico, because they provide a morerealistic vision about how Mexico policy is made when a crisis develops.

There was the State Department official, not a Mexico expert, who told us,“We always roll our eyes when the Mexico expert says ‘you have to treat theMexicans like this. You have to be sensitive to their national history.’” Or the other guy at State who said, “Bottom line, we want stability.”

And, as everyone here knows, the final decision on immigration policy, cer-tainly in 2003 and 2004, is not made by the National Security Council. It is notmade by the State Department. It is not made by the Homeland SecurityDepartment. It was made by the Domestic Policy Council. And guess what? Theydo not know much about Mexico—but they do know a lot about U.S. politics.

One other example: when President Fox appointed Jorge Castañeda to be

Foreign Minister, we called the Mexico desk and were given a very good answer about how much the U.S. government is looking forward to working with thenew Foreign Minister. But when we called the White House, and reached some-one higher up in the National Security Council who does not deal with LatinAmerica on a day-to-day basis, he said, “Jorge Castañeda? Well, I heard he was acommunist.” So that is the impression. That impression is an important part of thestory of what Castañeda had to confront when he took his post. Struggling to getout that part of the story is part of the job.

It is not a popular story to say to people in Mexico that the people who aremaking decisions here do not know much about you and do not really care,regardless of the rhetoric.

All of the journalists for Mexican newspapers in the United States also have todeal with the impression that U.S. policy towards Mexico is some grand conspir-acy. I remember we went to the State Department one time and spoke with a guy(he no longer works there) who knew something about Mexico, but was fairlyhigh up. On his desk he had a whole folder full of cartoons from my newspaper,many of which were very critical of the U.S. He had several copies of one in par-ticular that was making fun of the DEA in quite a crass way. I said, “Why do you




have this in this file folder?” He said, “Oh, we love that; we sent those up to theeighth floor. It is making fun of the DEA. We hate the DEA much more than wehate the Mexicans.”

But for all of this, I think the Mexican press does a tremendous job, with verylimited resources relative to their counterparts in the United States, attempting tocover at least part of the United States. The Mexican media has done sometremendous coverage of immigration issues, for instance. My colleagues at our weekly political magazine, Masiosare , as well as journalists from other newspapers,have done reports not just on the people who died in the Arizona desert but alsoon the communities that those people were from. Talking about why they had toleave; talking about what those families thought; finding out that they used togrow coffee and that then, because of the international coffee price, they couldnot grow it anymore and they had to become migrants. That is how they endedup dying in the Arizona desert.

Those are the stories that are beginning to come out in Pascal Beltran-del-

Rio’s magazine; in Proceso certainly. A lot of the publications in Mexico are begin-ning to understand that you have to have this kind of coverage one way or anoth-er. The question is how to balance that against the other pressures on your editorseveryday.




The U.S.-Mexico border offers endless story opportunities. There is violence, cor-ruption and poverty; immigration, rapid growth and environmental degradation;political change and cultural ferment. For all the challenges, there are men andwomen who rise to meet them, and telling their stories is what makes this beat richand varied. Finding subjects here is not difficult; choosing the right ones is the trick.

I work for The San Diego Union-Tribune , the largest daily newspaper on the U.S.-Mexico border; its average daily circulation is over 350,000 (on Sundays it is434,000). Although my beat is Tijuana and Baja California, my newspaper views meas a local reporter, a member of the Metro Desk, on par with my colleagues whocover cities, schools and courts in San Diego County. But I consider myself both aforeign correspondent and a local one, and I strive to strike a balance between thetwo roles.

Covering Tijuana and Baja California means writing about a world that is bothnear and far for many of our readers. Some intensely dislike Mexico and would pre-fer to avoid the subject altogether; they complain bitterly when we dedicate newspages—especially local news pages—to our southern neighbor, and threaten tocancel their subscription when they are particularly displeased. Others have anintense interest in Mexico and the border, travel there regularly, and keep a closeeye on what we say. And a growing number live in Mexico: Sunday sales of the SanDiego Union-Tribune in Tijuana are above 3,400, and many of the readers are the

city’s decision-makers.The Metro Desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune is made up of teams. I work

for the “Border Team,”which includes an immigration writer, a business writer, andtwo reporters assigned to the newspaper’s Tijuana bureau. We also have a one-per-son bureau in Mexico City, that reports to our parent company, CopleyNewspapers. The newspaper also has aSpanish-language weekly, Enlace , that isprimarily geared towards U.S. Latinos andis delivered free of charge to homes andnewsstands in San Diego; Enlace writers,

based north of the border, are regularlytranslated for the English-language paper, usually for the feature sections. But for themost part, when considering the daily life of Tijuana, there are really only the twoof us in the Tijuana bureau, and we are often overwhelmed with the breaking newsstories and big issues of the day.

Covering the border begs the question: is Mexico a foreign country, or is itpart of our region? In San Diego, it is both. Witness the lines of northbound carscrawling toward the border each morning, filled with workers, students and shop-

Sandra Dibblen

San Diego Union-Tribune n“The Stories that Whisper”

Covering the border begs the question: isMexico a foreign country, or is it part of ourregion? In San Diego, it is both.




pers. Or drive to a housing development in the farthest reaches of Tijuana andnotice the preponderance of California license plates. But for all the ties, there arealso stark legal, economic and cultural differences.Reporting on the region meansreflecting both the links and the dissonance.

Some topics come up with reliable regularity. One recurring theme is themishaps that occur to Americans traveling in Baja California as they purchase med-icine, drive cars, and have encounters with Mexican police. The most haunting isthe story of an Iowa woman who said she was raped at the border crossing by aTijuana police officer assigned to a unit that assists tourists. Another involved a SanDiego man seriously injured in an automobile accident; he was not allowed toimmediately cross back to the United States for crucial medical treatment becausehe was considered at fault, had no insurance and needed to post bond before beingallowed to leave the country. One of the most dramatic events in recent yearsinvolved the evictions of dozens of U.S. citizens from their waterfront homes near Ensenada; some had purchased plots through a bank trust (others had long-term

leases) and they lost their investments as a result of a protracted property dispute.Another subject that doesn’t go away is

the drug violence. In over a decade of covering Baja California, I have writtenabout the killings of two police chiefs; the1997 attack on one newspaper editor andthe assassination of his close colleaguenearly seven years later; the 1998 massacreof 19 people outside in the community of El Sauzal, and countless other mob-style

hits. These are events that have resonatedfar beyond the border, carried across the world on the major wire services, andbringing legions of foreign reporters to Baja California.

These are stories that shout—subjects that easily make it to the front page of our newspaper; that foreign correspondents will rush to cover, only to rush outagain. And they are essential to covering this region. But in the rush to cover these, something is forgotten: The stories that whisper. A professor in journalismschool taught me the phrase, “The real news never makes the deadline.”Whispering stories rarely make the deadline. But they are no less important intelling the story of the border region.

A whispering story would explain why so many San Diego workers are livingin Tijuana, using Mexican government loans to purchase tiny houses in thesprawling suburban cookie-cutter developments rising like Mexican Levittowns.Prohibitive housing costs in San Diego have led growing numbers to buy inMexico and these dual U.S.-Mexican citizens can take advantage of both worlds:San Diego paychecks, and Tijuana-sized mortgages. It’s not unusual to step intothese houses and find flooring, furniture, televisions, refrigerators, clothes andfood purchased in the United States.

These are stories that shout—subjects thateasily make it to the front page of our news-paper; that foreign correspondents will rush to cover, only to rush out again. And they areessential to covering this region. But in therush to cover these, something is forgotten:The stories that whisper.




Another whispering story would be the group of people that gathers on Sundaysin a public park to learn the danzon. The lilting dance originated in 19th centuryCuba, arrived in Mexico through the Yucatan, and is now being performed by peo-ple at the border. And now, in one of Mexico’s busiest cities, people are taking thetime to step slowly to the lilting rhythms that their grandparents knew.

One path to the whispering stories is through the arts. Tijuana has playwrights,novelists, poets, dancers, opera singers, actors, painters—all of whom have some-thing to express about this unique corner of the world. Journalists, even thosewith hard-news orientations, would do well to listen more to what they have tosay; they help sharpen our senses as we watch these streets and hear the voices,and feel the border’s rhythms.

It can be hard to write about people leading their daily lives— but they can tella larger story about the region. The ballet classes in a struggling colonia taught byRussian teachers; the race for acceptance to Tijuana’s elite public high school; fansenjoying the return of baseball; the outpouring of the faithful in honor of the

Virgin of Guadalupe each December 12th. These stories, correctly told, can begems that shine a different light on the border.

Those of us who cover the U.S.-Mexico border have the privilege of witness-ing the fuller story of the border—and it’s our duty to reflect that in our cover-age. It may take an extra effort, but unless we reach beyond the standard fare, allwe’re telling is the “shouting stories,” and failing to hear the softer voices that arealso calling out.




La perspectiva que tenemos cada uno de nosotros acerca de este tema del estadode los informes bilaterales depende en quienes somos, donde vivimos, cual es nues-tra historia…Do I live in Washington DC and read The Washington Post or listen toNational Public Radio (NPR)? Do I live in Tijuana and have access to U.S andMexican and U.S. Latino media; am I bilingual? Do I have access to the Internet?What do all these perspectives indicate in terms of giving the community of mediacritics and media consumers a direction to follow in order to improve the state of bilateral reporting? Indeed, I think it is clear that regardless of which side we standon, we need to improve our perspectives and I hope that this volume provides

some kind of directive to follow for both sides of the border.From my perspective as a bilingual, bicultural person born in Mexico and

raised in the United States, there has been a lot of improvement in bilateral cov-erage in the last ten years. I have been a public radio reporter for almost threedecades. In the course of these three decades, the medium that I work in, pub-lic radio, has improved its coverage of Mexico, Latin America, and the U.S.Latino community. But it has been a process. I remember working in El Paso,Texas on a project in the late 80s, trying to convince NPR to cover more storiesfrom the border. We also proposed setting up a border bureau and there was lit-tle interest in the border bureau idea, or in stories from the border.

Things have changed. NAFTA had a big impact on that. A few years agoNPR set up a so-called “border bureau” which basically consists of the wonder-ful reporter who is stationed in Austin and who has a whole lot of other storiesto cover in addition to the border. I remember when I was an editor on theNational Desk at NPR in Washington making the case for the need for a bureauin Mexico City. At that point there was an idea of collaboration among variouspublic radio vehicles. There was a proposal for a collaborative effort between thestation in Dallas, Public Radio International (now American Public Media), andNPR, leading to a substantial public radio presence in Mexico. That did not hap-pen, although there is now one NPR and one American Public Media reporter stationed in Mexico. Coverage of Mexico on the part of the major vehicles of public radio has been inconsistent, although the BBC/American Public Mediacollaboration “The World” has been more consistent in its coverage since hiringcorrespondent Franc Contreras in 1996.

Certainly, there are ebbs and flows in this commitment, particularly since9/11, when the media’s attention focused more on the fact that we are, indeed,a big world. But that commitment has a long way to go as far as providing con-sistent and fully textured coverage of Latin America is concerned. Throughout

nMaria Martin

nGracias Vida ProductionsnLatino USA, National Public Radio“Journalism Sin Fronteras”




this volume, many have mentioned various stereotypes. I call them the holy trin-ity that often happens in coverage of Mexico and Latin American affairs. Theholy trinity of immigration, drug trafficking and corruption—these stereotypesthat exist in bilateral reporting—startedas far back as the 19th century. They arefull of history and in some ways havetaken on lives of their own.

There are those who argue that suchstereotypes become part of the culturalmindset to such a degree that they areextremely hard to shake. Regardless of whether it is the “big, bad imperialistgringo” stereotype in Mexico or stereo-types that color the way American journalists or editors frame their coverage of Mexico and the way they and their readers think about Mexicans; these become

ingrained concepts that are hard to change. For instance, why is it that publicofficials in Mexico who break the law are often depicted as part of a corrupt sys-tem, whereas law-breaking U.S public officials are portrayed as individuals whobroke the law? Definitely, there is a difference there. This almost ingrained wayof thinking creates its own critical mass; it influences media content and, morethan that, it is one of the factors in constructing identity. This is extremely inter-esting to consider in light of the skyrocketing growth of the Latino populationin the United States.

One cannot talk about bilateral relations without taking into account the num-ber of Mexicanos and other Latinos (legal and illegal) who live in los Estados Unidos,

without taking into account the need of the U.S. economy for Mexican labor, andthe money that Mexicanos send home, and how it contributes to the security of acountry with a high poverty level that borders the most powerful country in theworld. In just that way, one cannot really talk about the state of bilateral reportingwithout taking into account the 37 million Latinos, including 24 millionMexicanos, who live in the United States. You cannot understand the veryAmerican stories that are happening everywhere from San Diego, California toKnoxville, Tennessee to Raleigh, North Carolina without considering this reality.

If we do not understand the reality and the context of the diaspora of Latinosfrom Mexico, from Guatemala, from Argentina, from Bolivia, from throughoutthe continent, then we are failing as a press. From the point of view of a U.S.-based reporter doing my job of trying to reflect the United States reality to myaudience, understanding and reporting what is happening within our own bor-ders is, in and of itself, a compelling argument for improving our coverage of Mexico and Latin America.

We as journalists are, or should be, compelled to improve our coverage toreflect this complex reality. Also, to reflect the changing face of our audiencesand the need for understanding across national borders and cultural divides as our

From the point of view of a U.S.-basedreporter doing my job of trying to reflect theUnited States reality to my audience, under-standing and reporting what is happeningwithin our own borders is, in and of itself, acompelling argument for improving our cov-erage of Mexico and Latin America.




two societies transform with the demographics and the dynamics of immigra-tions. There is the audience in Mexico; there is the American audience in theU.S; there is the policy-making audience in this country, which is becomingmore and more diverse; there is the audience of Latinos in the United States— that growing and very complex audience with an appetite for media that reflectsthe reality that they know.

As I was thinking about role the press and the communications media will playin explaining and presenting the phenomenal growth of the Latino community inthis country in the next twenty years, and how this will impact the coverage of Mexico and Latin America, I got to thinking about the Zoot Suit Riots in the1940s in Los Angeles. At that point, the United States was at war and the Hearstpapers sensationalized Mexico’s supposed collaboration with the Axis powers.Somehow in that coverage of what was going on in Mexico, there were connec-tions made to U.S.-born Latinos, to Mexican-American young men, called“Pachucos” or “Zoot-suiters” for their style of clothes. The connections in the

media were made in such a way that portrayed these young men, (many of whomwe were going to sign up to join the Army and the Navy), as un-American.

This led to the incident called the “Zoot Suit Riots, ” which were actuallyattacks by U.S Navy sailors against young Latino men. These attacks were foment-ed by the media as a result of the kind of reporting that was happening in the Los Angeles Times. This incident not only resulted in attacks against some innocentpeople, it also colored the way the general public viewed persons of Mexicandescent. Most unfortunate for The Los Angeles Times, it also created many enemiesamong Latinos in the city, who for many years refused to subscribe to the paper.

So again, I think that when we are talking about the media and how it por-

trays groups, it is important to note the construction of identity that goes alongwith this, and which will have a long lasting effect on what happens in the nextten and twenty and thirty years. How these stories are written or told today willaffect how the children of Mexicanos (indeed, all of our children) are viewed,how that identity is constructed, and how those stereotypes continue to play out.

Since I have mentioned some history, let me continue—in the 1970s, with theChicano movement for civil rights, there was a different kind of interaction goingon with media in the United States vis-à-vis coverage of Latinos and LatinAmerica. There was pressure for a change in the media when the Kerner Commission (set up in 1968, to find the causes of race riots that happened in the1960s) said that the media contributed to racial tension by viewing the world onlythrough “a white man’s lens.” And so the societal changes that came about as aresult of that finding, such as affirmative action in hiring more Latinos and other minorities in the U.S. media, resulted in limited change and laid the ground workfor what I believe could be the beginnings of real change, a true “journalism sinfronteras”—a journalism that is self-critical and moves beyond stereotypes.

I look at the media that does a better job of covering Mexico and I see editorsand reporters who have lived a binational, bicultural experience, people like Jerry



Kammer and José Carreño and Pedro Armendares, people who can live easily inboth cultures, who can reach the borders of El D.F. and Washington DC, Tijuana,and other places. I think when you have these types of people not only asreporters, but also in positions to really make a difference, then that is when wewill begin to see the kind of bilateral reporting that has context, texture, validity,and truth, and that moves beyond stereotypes.

I also think that the point made by Jerry Kammer in his chapter is very impor-tant. We have to have the forums to discuss and debate regarding the fact that weall bring a certain amount of intellectual baggage; and the more that we can beself-critical about our work, the better that that work will be. Media academicFelix Gutierrez talks about the coverage of U.S. Latinos in the mainstream mediafalling into three categories and I think that these also often reflect the coverageof Mexico and Latin America.

The first category of coverage is“celebrity” stories, where the media will

cover issues having to do with Latinos if they are sports stars, politicians, entertain-ers or J-Lo. Then, there will be storiesabout Latinos as “problem people:” for instance, Latinos are poor, they are immi-grants, they are gang members, they areillegals, they are welfare moms, etc. The third category of coverage of Latinos iswhat Guitierrez calls “zoo” stories. The stories of the exotic, such as coverage of Latinos on Cinco de Mayo, or the Puerto Rican Day Parade, or El Día de losMuertos. Gutierrez says, and I agree, “If we are newsworthy when we are color-

ful, we should be covered everyday, as we are (colorful) every day.”So I ask you to imagine: What is in store for bilateral relations, for this com-plex relationship that exists between Mexicanos and Norteamericanos and Latinosof every kind who inhabit this continent, if this kind of coverage (covering com-munities as “the other” rather than as the sister countries we are) continues? Ithink the challenge for those of us in the media on both sides is to raise, retainand advance those people who can reflect and explain that reality, not those whocontinue to perpetuate that which makes us distant neighbors.

This is what I was trying to do with Latino U.S.A., a half-hour radio magazineof news and culture distributed by NPR, of which I was the founding producer when it went on the air in 1993, and which I executive produced for ten years.The idea was to have a forum that would create a bridge of cultural understand-ing; that would reflect the Latino reality in all of its aspects; that would give us aplace in the public radio spectrum that would appeal to all audiences, especiallythat key decision making audience that listens to National Public Radio. The sec-ond stage of that vision was to increase our coverage of Mexico and Latin America,not in a parachute kind of way, but to hear more commentators and reporters fromLatin America. We would be hearing the voices of Latin American thinkers, artists,


I think the challenge for those of us in the

media on both sides is to raise, retain andadvance those people who can reflect andexplain that reality, not those who continue to perpetuate that which makes us distantneighbors.



poets, and people on the streets. My idea was that we would start this on LatinoU.S.A. and then this type of coverage would transcend to the major news programson N.P.R.; that someday on public radio we would hear a programming stream of public radio programming from Latin America and from this country , in Englishand Spanish, that would go beyond the telenovelas, the “Sábado Gigantes”—cov-erage that would be coming from the South to the North as well as from the Northto the South—quality coverage creating greater understanding and affirming thebest in us. That was a dream I had when I was at Latino U.S.A.

Currently, I am working on a project that I hope will be a model along thelines of bringing reporters from the North and the South together. In the bilin-gual documentary series—“Despues de las Guerras: Central America After theWars,” reporters and producers from the United States, who have had experiencecovering Latin America, will be working with early career reporters and produc-ers, along with journalists from Central America.

I think that that kind of model where everybody with their own individual

baggage will have an opportunity to actually work on the same project, make con-nections, exchange ideas, will be a learning experience. I am hoping that a teamlike this will have the kind of intellectual diversity that is needed to challenge aglobal media that is fast becoming very homogeneous, even as the world and theUnited States undergo dramatic changes.




While reviewing the other papers collected in this volume, I at first felt like anoutsider. I am not a journalist; I am a political scientist. Similarly to Roderic Campand John Bailey, I do academic work, but to my academic colleagues I am also apractitioner of polling. Because of this, they see me more as a practitioner than asan academic. On the other side, the polling industry always sees me as too aca-demic, and you can imagine what conflict this brings me working for a newspaper.

However, the fact is that the more I do this work, polling and editing or play-ing the role of editor in the polling side of the newspaper, the more I see resem-

blances. For example, I know that other paper authors list in their curriculumvitae some of the highlights in their careers. Someone interviewed such-and-suchperson or leader. In five years working and doing polls for Reforma, I and theinterviewers who work with me haveinterviewed over half a million people.That is a lot of interviews in five years.

Who are those people? They are notpolitical leaders. They are not importantbusinessmen. They are common citizens, and this is very telling of how Mexicancoverage on issues and politics has changed over time. We interview the Mexicanpublic and we tell the Mexican public (or those who read the newspaper or whohear the stories on television and radio that do secondary analysis on the polls)what the public thinks.

Today, the polling industry in Mexico has developed in very important ways.Ten years ago, we were debating on matters of sampling and other technical mat-ters. Today, a major difference between polls in Mexico is what pollsters are ask-ing, how they are asking, and how this is reflected in different data.

Polls are almost in their entirety front-page stories both in the United Statesand in Mexico. Every time there is a poll, a solid poll, it finds space on the frontpage. Some of them do not, and this is because of the increasing number of pollsthat we do.

As a reference, last year, 2004, was an election year and we estimated about 50elections at the national, state, and local levels. We conducted over 150 polls inone year, some of them bigger, some of them smaller, but this is probably morethan the number of polls conducted by The New York Times or The L.A.Times inone year, according to conversations I have had with my colleagues who work for those newspapers. About 70 to 80 percent of the poll reports during elections findtheir place on the front page. They become a primary source for other analyses


Alejandro Morenon

Reforman“Pushing and Polling: Tracking the Dynamicsn

of nPublic Opinion in Mexico”

We interview the Mexican public and we tell the Mexican public . . . what the public thinks.



and coverage. They are used by columnists or by other writers who elaborate onthese polls. Public polls have become part of the everyday coverage. Even thoughthey are costly or take some time to conduct, you see polls more and more inMexican newspapers.

Elections are newsworthy, of course, and polls are an increasingly commonpart of election coverage. We are, as of this writing, over two years away from thepresidential election in 2006 and horse race polls are already front-page stories. Ihave been talking to many journalists and a common question I am asked is howLópez-Obrador or Creel, or any other candidate, is doing in the polls these days.

When Roderic Camp was doing his research in Mexico some years ago, themain interest of political scientists was on the “mandarins,” on the political elites.A politician’s presidential aspirations depended on the small camarillas (close polit-ical groups) and, at the end of the day, of the dedazo (designation of the incom-ing president by the outgoing president). Today, that story is not quite right. Wesee more nomination processes and the candidates’ fates depend more on the pub-

lic views. The PAN has not opened its nomination process or selection process for the presidency. So it still matters what the delegates do or think, but it also mat-ters to see what the public thinks about politicians.

We cover government and provide stories about how well or how badly thepublic perceives it is doing its job. We cover policy making and legislation andmeasure public reactions and levels of support.

Studying and reporting Mexican attitudes and opinions about the UnitedStates is a difficult matter but we are starting to do it. Public opinion, as many of you know, rests on two different, intertwined areas. On the one hand, we haveinformation: Is the public informed about issues? Not really. The average citizen

has generally low levels of information about issues. However, information is noteverything. There is also predisposition, as political scientist John Zaller hasshown. Many of the other papers in this volume mention this: stereotypes, equalvalues, and ways of thinking. This has also been called “accumulated knowledge.”Asking about the United States implies both what we know now and what wepreviously thought of it; that is, what are our predispositions about it?

There are many kinds of polls, but political polls almost always raise the ques-tion of independence versus partisanship. Since polls became public in Mexico,pollsters have been seen as some sort of chameleon. They change color accordingto their poll results. Sometimes they are partisans of the PRD, sometimes they arepartisans for the PRI, and some other times they are partisans of whomever thepolls shows ahead. This becomes a problem of credibility for them when the tryto be independent.

This is very important because, although we know that there are partisan polls,there is also a need for independent polls. When you report results that the PRDis ahead on this race and the PRI on that race, and the PAN on another one, ithelps differentiate the independent versus the partisan polls. Independence is great-ly valued for a media poll. It increases credibility, especially when it is accurate.




A poll is not only valued for its independence but also for its precision and accu-racy. You are not only saying the PRD is likely to win by a certain number of per-centage points in some race, or the PAN in another, or the PRI in another, but youactually have to show that this will be the case, with a certain margin of error. Themore accurate your poll is or the more precision you have in your work over time,the more the value of independence increases. We are not publishing poll results infavor of this politician or these other politicians because we favor them but becausethat is what our measures of public preferences show.

Technically, the value of precision is based on both good sampling and goodquestionnaire design—the wording—and we may add a good data analysis.Accuracy increases credibility. The more accurate you are, the more credible your polling work is.

There is one more thing when you poll for a newspaper that goes beyond thetechnical work. Polls also have a value of simplicity. In her chapter, RossanaFuentes-Beraín mentions that editors are storytellers. When we do media polls, we

know that there are readers who look at the data, the tables, and the statistics.However, there are others who look for astory. They do not quite follow the num-bers very much but they grasp the story.The statistic alone tends to be newsworthybut there is a need to tell a story as well.

In this sense, a media pollster and his or her editors become storytellers. A pollster is not just a number cruncher; he or she isalso a storyteller. What is the story to tell? How do we connect data with the read-er? I think that all of us appreciate and thank good reporting and we all enjoy a good

story when we read it in the newspaper. I believe that polls are like that when theyoffer you as a reader not only the data but also a story.There are many ways to offer that story. For example, a percent or statistic about

what the Mexican public as a whole thinks, feels, or believes, becomes even moreinteresting when we look at the segments of the public. Also, good poll stories arebased on how opinions have changed over time and why. Historians are becomingmore like pollsters. Enrique Krauze, an acclaimed Mexican historian, published anarticle in his last issue of Letras Libres about the Huntington controversy in whichhe concludes that we actually need polls to tell us whether this is true or not—ahistorian was actually demanding polls and giving them the authority to help uswith this controversy.

In the same way, pollsters are also becoming more like historians because wehave trends over time and we can show whether opinion or preferences changeover time and why. The causality is not very well established, as in academic work,but there are some feasible causal attributions about why things have changed theway they have.

For example, Lopez Obrador was leading—or actually is leading—in the horserace towards 2006, but did this change after the corruption video scandals? If yes,


Pollsters are also becoming more like histori-ans because we have trends over time andwe can show whether opinion or preferenceschange over time and why.



how can we attribute it to the corruption video scandals? Stories develop when thedata is interpreted. For example, we have observed an interesting change in theMexican electorate. The PAN, which is widely known as a middle-class-basedparty, versus the PRD, which has a more popular-based electorate, changed itscomposition depending on the candidate that was put forth for the 2006 election.

Lopez Obrador, who has been showing amazingly high popularity ratings dur-ing his government, was attracting more and more the vote of the middle classes.However, the First Lady, Marta Saghun, who was included in several polls, wasactually not attracting votes from the usual PAN voter. She was attracting a moretraditional PRI or PRD voter. I think that is a way that we can understand howthe Mexican electoral dynamics are taking place.

In this sense, I would like to think of polls not just as exercises that provide uswith numbers and statistics, but also as sources of journalistic stories, which helpus see the differences of opinion at one point in time and also variations over time.

At Reforma, we do different polls, from quarterly national face-to-face polls to

monthly national telephone polls. We usually publish methodologies in the printand Web publications.

For example, a series of polls we did gauges Mexican public perceptions of theway the President is handling the bilateral relationship with the United States. Byinterpreting the data, a story emerges about the radical change of perceptions fromwhen Fox took office as opposed to his honeymoon period. Alternation amongpolitical parties brought better opinions about this issue. During the Zedillo admin-istration, people had generally lower perceptions of the way he was handling thebilateral relationship, and these perceptions deteriorated, not dramatically, but con-sistently, over the time period we polled. Perceptions about NAFTA are another

issue that we tried to measure, to keep track of, especially now that the tenthanniversary of NAFTA is coming. It was important to see how Mexicans evaluat-ed NAFTA. Such evaluations are generally favorable, but the gap between favor-able and unfavorable is narrowing. Why? I think this is where analysis and inter-pretation are required. Polls give you a lot of the story, but not all of it.

How about Mexican public opinion of President Bush? Opinions have beendeteriorating in recent months. A lot of the deterioration is because of the war, notnecessarily the war on terrorism in general, but the war in Iraq in particular. Dataafter September 11 have demonstrated the need to know what Mexicans thinktheir country’s position should be on the war against terrorism.

The immediate polls after 9/11 showed a very, very favorable public sentimentin Mexico about collaboration with the United States. But then we also know thatMexicans follow the leader in many ways, and the position of the Mexican gov-ernment has influenced these trends in which the majority of Mexicans— and anincreasing majority towards the time the war in Iraq started in the first quarter of 2003—was against the idea of supporting the United States in the war against ter-rorism.




SECTION 4SECCIÓN 4

La Cobertura Periodística sobre la ComunidadMexicana Transnacional

Covering the Transnational Mexican Community





As an academic rather than a reporter I have a slightly different point of view thanmost of those presented by the journalists in this volume. Nonetheless, I rely heav-ily on the work that journalists produce and the stories that they write. The workthat I do is mostly qualitative and ethnographic; I have conducted many interviewswith first-generation immigrants here in the United States, in the context of thelocalities that are receiving them.Whenever I begin doing ethnographic field work,one of the first things I do is turn to the work that journalists have produced in writ-ing about these receiving areas or writing about these topics.

However, I remember when, back in the 1990s, I ran across a public opinionpoll, a survey of U.S. public opinion, asking about respondents’ perceptions of a

number of immigration-related topics. The survey asked respondents: “What per-cent of the U.S. population do you think is Hispanic?”; “How many Hispanics do you think are foreign-born?”; “How many immigrants do you think are here asundocumented aliens?”; and “Do youthink that immigrants in the U.S. arehere to stay?”4

To all these questions, people respond-ed in remarkably erroneous ways. Theybelieved that the percentage of Hispanics,African Americans and Asian Americans

were much, much higher than they, in fact, are. They thought that most Hispanicsin the U.S. were foreign-born, when in fact they are not. They believed that mostLatinos were arriving here illegally, not as legal immigrants, and they thought thatmost immigrants who were now coming to the U.S. were not coming here to stay;that is, that they were here as temporary workers and they would go back to their home countries. Respondents had this impression of immigrants in constant move-ment back and forth between their countries of origin and the United States.

I am going to explain how each of these impressions is fundamentally wrong. Iwould also like to suggest that part of the reason that these mistaken impressionsexist is due to journalists—and not because I think that the stories that are beingpublished are always bad. I think they are, by and large, very good. As I began bysaying, I use them myself. I think that they are wonderfully written stories in manycases, with very careful reporting. It takes an incredible amount of work and effortto produce these kinds of stories.

However, I would like to suggest that when the stories are presented throughthe media, they lack context and perspective; that is to say, they present a slice of what is going on, but not the entirety of what is going on. Take, for instance, thetopic of whether Mexicans in the United States are here legally or illegally. If one


Michael Jones-Correa”Cornell University”

“Three Misconceptions about Immigration”

When the stories are presented through themedia, they lack context and perspective; thatis to say, they present a slice of what is goingon, but not the entirety of what is going on.



looks at coverage by the print media (and television—TV is more egregious thanthe print media) the media focuses on stories about the U.S./Mexico border andthe predominant image they repeat— over and over—is of illegal immigrantscrossing the border.5

What is missing here is a sense of perspective.Mexico is the largest sender of legalimmigrants to the United States. It is also the largest sender of undocumented aliens,but it is simultaneously the largest sender of legal immigrants. Somehow this fact isoften completely forgotten by the American public and American policymakers.

Mexico sends about 20 percent of all legalimmigrants who arrive to the UnitedStates in any given year: about 200,000 a year in recent years.6 The next largestsending country is India, which in 2002sent about 7 percent of all legal immi-grants to the U.S., which is just to say that

Mexico is far and away the largest sender of legal immigrants to the United States.

Although the figures for illegal migration from Mexico are fuzzy, in any given year there may be another 200,000 undocumented immigrants who decide to stay in theUS each year, two-thirds of these from Mexico.7 So legal immigrants from Mexicomatch or exceed illegal immigrants from Mexico in any given year. These figuresare somehow lost in the coverage of Mexico by the media.

The common perception is that most Mexicans—or people of Mexicandescent—living in the U.S. are foreign-born. Actually, however, only 40 percent of all Latinos living in the U.S. are foreign-born. The percentage for Mexicans is actu-

ally lower. It is true that 60 percent of all Latinos in the U.S. are first-or second-gen-eration—they are immigrants or the children of immigrants. It is also the case that60 percent of all Latinos 18 and over living in the U.S. are foreign-born. But whatis ignored here is, first of all, the quite substantial population of adults who arenative-born. Second, if one looks at the demographic trends, 85 percent of allLatinos in the U.S. under the age of 18 are native-born.8 The demographic trend istowards a native-born population. At times this demographic reality is played up insome kinds of stories, like those about education or youth. But in general there is,once again, a loss of perspective in the way that the Mexican population is covered,so that Mexicans are seen, by implication if not by definition, as foreigners.

The final question I would like to examine is whether immigrants are here tostay. The print media has produced very good stories about transnationalism—theidea that there are ties that bridge the sending country and the receiving country,and that transnationalism is composed of a network of social relationships and socialties that cross borders and that are constantly renewed. This understanding of transnationalism implies there is a cyclical, back-and-forth movement of informa-tion and people and money, good and ideas.This may be sometimes right and part-ly true, but here again there is a loss of perspective, which is that immigrant transna-

74 Section 4 I Covering the Transnational Mexican Community

The common perception is that mostMexicans—or people of Mexican descent—living in the U.S. are foreign-born. Actually,however, only 40 percent of all Latinos livingin the U.S. are foreign-born. The percentage

for Mexicans is actually lower.



tionalism is only a part of what is going on with the Mexican population in the U.S.If you look at the figures historically, immigrants today are no more likely to

return to their home countries than immigrants in the past. As with undocument-ed migration, the figures are fuzzy, since the U.S. does not collect emigration data,but there are estimates in the Census and from US Citizenship and ImmigrationServices that look at return rates. Returnrates now are no higher than they havebeen at any point in the U.S. history. Soif one were to look at the last great waveof immigration, overall, 25 to 30 percentof immigrants were returning to their home countries.9 That percentage is thesame or lower today. Transnationalism hasnot changed the overall picture of return rates to countries of origin.

In 1911, Congress received a report it had commissioned that included a series

of studies of immigrants in the U.S. at that time. This report found much higher return rates for immigrants from Europe at that period of time than we see nowamong contemporary immigrants in the United States today. Overall, return ratesin 1911 were about 32 percent, and return rates were quite high for groups likeCroatians and Slovaks (which were at 57 percent), northern Italians (at 63 per-cent), Slovaks (59 percent), and Spaniards (51 percent). Return rates were quitehigh then, and almost certainly higher than that they are today.10

Remittances are another key aspect of transnationalism, and the story of remit-tances has gotten a tremendous amount of play in the media, as in some ways itshould: it is a very important story, particularly for those countries receiving

remittances. The amount of money that is going back to Latin America is verylarge: most Central American and Caribbean countries recieve as much or morein remittances than they are getting in foreign direct investment and certainlymore than they are getting in U.S. foreign aid. In 1993, there was more than $30billion going to Latin America alone.11

However, what this story misses is that the overall Latino market—the amountHispanics in the United States spend in any given year—was estimated at $653billion in 2003.12 The Latino market in the U.S. is very large. So if the media givesonly the story of the $30 billion in remittances going back to Latin America, itmakes it seem as if the efforts of immigrants in the U.S. are largely going to main-taining ties with their ‘home countries.’ This is not what is happening in reality.Rather, Latinos are sending only between 4 and 5 percent of their total spendingback to their countries of origin. That is the context that is being lost in the sto-ries about immigrant remittances: that while 4 to 5 percent of Latino earningpower is being sent back to Latin America, the other 95 percent is being invest-ed and spent here in the U.S. It is not that the remittance story, or transnational-ism, is not important—they are happening and having a substantial impact. It is just that these trends are only part of a larger story.


Latinos are sending only between 4 and 5percent of their total spending back to theircountries of origin. That is the context that isbeing lost in the stories about immigrantremittances.



Media coverage of dual nationality and dual loyalties is similar. When Mexicoallowed dual nationality in 1998, there was a spate of stories in the NorthAmerican press about the potential number of Mexicans who were going to adoptdual nationality, about how this was going to change not only Mexican politicsbut also U.S. politics, and about how this was going to create all kinds of compli-cations for the way we conceive of citizenship and political participation. Onceagain, all of those questions are important questions and important stories, but thenumbers of Mexican-Americans who have gone through the process to recover their Mexican nationality has, proportionally, been very, very small: less than half a percent of the eligible population.13 That story did not get covered nearly aswell, and the actual impact that dual nationality has had on Mexico, or on theUnited States, has also been quite small.

Research using ‘Census Current Population Survey’ data indicates that thegreatest effect of dual nationality has been that immigrants’ are actually more like-ly to acquire U.S. citizenship.14 The data shows that immigrants from Latin

American countries that have allowed dual nationality are significantly more like-ly than their counterparts from countries without provisions for dual nationalityto adopt U.S. citizenship. It seems that what dual nationality does is lower the costfor immigrants to take on U.S. citizenship. The irony is that dual nationality makesit easier for immigrants to participate in American politics. That is a story thatdoes not get covered. Instead, dual nationality is seen as contributing to the ero-sion of American conceptions of nationality and American citizenship, concernswhich are completely and totally overplayed, again because there is no attempt toplace things into perspective.

There are other areas where the media reports well on immigration from

Mexico but in the process loses perspective, but I will stop with these three. I wantto reemphasize that I think much of the reporting on these issues is of very highquality. But in many of these pieces it would be very, very helpful to have even asentence or two that places the story in context: that says this is what we are look-ing at here and this is how it fits into the overall picture. Journalists should not losesight of the overall picture because we have seen the consequences: the Americanpublic comes away thinking that Latinos are 30 percent of the U.S. population,that all Hispanics are foreign-born, that every Mexican in the United States isundocumented, and that immigrants care nothing for this country, instead cling-ing to their ties with their countries of origin. Each of these misconceptions hasunfortunate policy implications, and for these, journalists, however well inten-tioned, are at least partly responsible.




Notes1. For a similar survey today, see for example, Hamilton College. (2003). National

Immigration Poll. Hamilton College. http://www.hamilton.edu/news/more_news/display.cfm?ID=5766

2. Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary

American Public Discourse (Austin: University of Texas Press 2002). See especially,chapter 3.

3. See for example the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2003 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, (GPO: Washington DC 2004), section 3.

4. Jeffrey S. Passel, Randy Capps and Michael Fix, “Undocumented Immigrants: Factsand Figures” Urban Institute Immigration Studies Program, January 12, 2004.http://www.urban.org/UploadesPDF/1000587_undoc_immigrants_facts.pdf

5. Roberto R. Ramirez, We the People: Hispanics in the United States (WashingtonDC: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, December 2004).

6. Bashir Ahmed and J. Gregory Robinson, “Estimates of Emigration of the Foreign-Born Population: 1980–1990,” Population Division Working Paper No. 9. Population

Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census (December 1994) http://www.census.gov/ popu-lation/www/documentation/twps0009/twps0009.html

7. Michael Jones-Correa, Between Two Nations: The Political Predicament of Latinos inNew York City (Cornell University Press, 1998) p. 93.

8. Michael Jones-Correa, “The Political and Economic Influence of HispanicCommunities in the US” Country Forecast, Latin American Regional Overview,Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2004 pp. 14–23.

9. “Hispanic Market Facts”, http://mobile-media.com/library/Latino_More_Facts.pdf.10. Michael Jones-Correa, “Under Two Flags: Dual Nationality in Latin America and Its

Consequences for Naturalization in the United States” International MigrationReview 35:4 Winter 2001 pp. 997–1029

11. Ibid. and also Jones-Correa, “Institutional and Contextual Factors in ImmigrantCitizenship and Voting” Citizenship Studies 5:1 February 2001 pp. 41–56




Mientras el auto en que atravesaba el Bay Bridge entre Oakland y San Francisco,corría a muchas más millas de las permitidas, el viento que me pegaba en la carase empezó a hacer mas frió… una sensación incomoda me corrió por todo elcuerpo, era una combinación de frió del ambiente y escalofrió de pensar en lo queme esperaba en las siguientes dos horas. Mi misión no era tan peligrosa comomuchas otras tareas periodísticas que me habían tocado ya en mis muchos años dereportero de televisión… la guerra en Centroamérica a pesar de lo cruenta y lobrutal que era, nunca me había causado la misma sensación. Tampoco las trifulcascallejeras, los temblores o los huracanes me habían preocupado nunca, la verdad

situaciones peligrosas nunca me habían causado malestar… pero esta vez, lasmariposas en el estomago me indicaban que mi cerebro sabia que me acercaba auna misión muy incomoda.

Lo que me traía a San Francisco esta vez, era una asignación que yo mismohabía buscado durante semanas… venia a entrevistar a S.I. Hayakawa, el presidentefundador de U.S. English. Como periodista estoy acostumbrado a la rudeza de la

gente, incluso a los insultos… pero losinsultos velados todavía me hacencosquillar el estomago… y hoy estabaseguro de que me venia una buena dosisde insultos velados simple y sencilla-mente por que yo venia representando auna televisora Estadounidense cuya únicadiferencia con las otras era… que habla-ba con su audiencia en Español.

La gente de US English con su frustración de ver como su causa se hundía por el simple peso de la presencia de millones y millones de hispano parlantes enEstados Unidos, no nos perdonaba que todavía tuviéramos la arrogancia de poner su odio en el record de nuestras cámaras. No me equivoque, las acusaciones dedivisionistas y de separatistas nos llovieron ese día.

El cosquilleo se me olvido pronto y lo que me quedo después de la entrevista

con Hayakawa fue una sensación de satisfacción. ¿Sabe usted por que?, porquenunca he creído que los que trabajamos en la prensa en español en EstadosUnidos, estemos separando a los latinos del resto de la gente de este gran país. Loque estamos haciendo más bien, es servir de puente entre dos culturas. El tiempome ha enseñado que el sistema en este, mi nuevo país, es como el baseball: Three strikes and you are out . Mi ventaja es que yo conocía mucho más a este sistema ypodía ayudar con mi trabajo a evitarle a miles de latinos el dolor de darse en la


“Armando Guzmán

“TV Azteca y TV Azteca América“Mis Aventuras Reportandole a Dos Paises”

Nunca he creído que los que trabajamos en laprensa en español en Estados Unidos, este-mos separando a los latinos del resto de la

gente de este gran país. Lo que estamoshaciendo más bien, es servir de puente entredos culturas.



cabeza con las paredes que muchas veces son completamente invisibles para quienno las conoce, o nunca las ha visto.

He sido muy afortunado en mi carrera al tener la oportunidad de trabajar parala gente de dos países cubriendo lo que ocurre en una de las capitales másimportante del mundo. Es una aventura fascinante, cuando reporto para México,tengo que ser mucho muy claro, no para que la gente me entienda, sino, paraque no me malinterprete. En México para muchos es fácil ser antigringo, la ver-dad es una posición populachera para el fácil consumo, lo complicado es hacer ver a la gente de allá que las diferenciasentre los dos países no son tan difícilesde entender y que el sistema americanono esta diseñado para comerse a losdemás— especialmente a sus vecinos.

Poco a poco en los medios enespañol hemos aprendido que las audi-

encias de los dos países a pesar de ser Latinas son muy diferentes y que lo mejor es todos los días, estar muy conciente de estas diferencias. Por ejemplo; durantela guerra con Irak hubo un profundo antiamericanismo en los medios mexicanos.Hay que entender que cuando la gente de México piensa en los marines todavíapiensa en la invasión 1847… y en la muerte legendaria de los Niños Héroes enChapultepec… para estas cosas la memoria es larga ¡imagínese!, todavía tienenpresente un conflicto armando entre los dos países ocurrido a mediados del sigloXIX. Por el contrario cuando los mexicanos y los latinos de Estados Unidospiensan en los marines, piensan en sus padres, hijos, hermanos, primos y tíos quesirven en las filas de todas las fuerzas armadas de este país.

Los editores de mi televisora se dieron rápidamente cuenta de que los reportescríticos de la invasión de Estados Unidos a Irak que pasaba TV Azteca en México,causaban profunda molestia si llegaban a Azteca América, nuestra emisora enEstados Unidos. Azteca América necesitaba una cobertura distinta en la que sereportara sobre las acciones no del país vecino, sino de nuestro propio país, no delos soldados del país vecino… sino de los soldados que eran en ese momento,nuestros padres, hermanos, tíos y nuestros primos. Esta era la guerra no del veci-no… sino de nuestro nuevo país.

Con el tiempo a los periodistas, la piel se nos hace gruesa y los insultos se nosresbalan, y perdonamos, pero no olvidamos… hoy después de varios años todavíarecuerdo al senador Joseph Biden que en una intempestiva conferencia de pren-sa, dentro de la Casa Blanca, cuando nos hablaba del narcotráfico colombiano,hizo acusaciones que no eran claras, cuando le pedí que me puntualizara lo queacababa de decir… me respondió muy airado, que lo que nosotros estábamoshaciendo era matando a los niños americanos: “…What I am saying is that you are killing our children.”

¿Nosotros?, si para Biden los latinos en ese momento éramos parte de las ban-das de narcotraficantes de Colombia, quizás para él, nosotros, periodistas de una


Poco a poco en los medios en español hemosaprendido que las audiencias de los dos país-es a pesar de ser Latinas son muy diferentesy que lo mejor es todos los días, estar muyconciente de estas diferencias.



televisora estadounidense de lengua española, éramos lo mismo que la televisióncolombiana. Y aun así, yo nunca he sabido de periodistas de la televisión deColombia que hayan sido juzgados y encontrados culpables de narcotráfico enEstados Unidos.

Valía la pena decirle al senador, que yo soy ciudadano de Estados Unidos, ¡No!La regla dorada del periodismo es nunca hacerse parte de la historia, aunque comousted ve, muchas veces la gente piensa que uno es parte de ella… simplemente por ser latino.

John Conyers, el venerable congresista miembro eterno del comité de asuntos jurídicos de la cámara de representantes, un día ordeno que la policía del capito-lio desalojara a un equipo de la televisión Colombiana, por que representaban alenemigo.

El sargento de armas del capitolio le dijo a Conyers que con todo y su rangode chairman, no tenia derecho a desalojar de una audiencia publica a un equipo deperiodistas debidamente acreditados para cubrir el capitolio.

El venerable Chairman tuvo que tragarse su coraje. Lo irónico es que el equipoaun siendo de la televisión colombiana estaba integrado por residentes legales yciudadanos de Estados Unidos, lo irónico es que Conyers toda su vida hapeleado a favor de darle mas derechos a estos residentes legales… y desconocíatambién en ese momento que el hijo del camarógrafo al que llamaba enemigo, enese mismo momento servia en las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos.

A mis amigos Anglos que cubren México les he preguntado si a ellos les pasalo mismo allá… y claro… les sucede igual, pero a la inversa.

Obviamente las diferencias culturales nunca van a desaparecer, y es fascinantever el otro lado de las cosas. Durante casi dos décadas pase mi tiempo en la tele-

visión de Estados Unidos, reportando solo para Estados Unidos, y apareciendocada noche solamente en Estados Unidos.Había algunos que en México me reconocían por que alguna vez me habían

visto en los canales mexicanos de cable o porque habían prendido el televisor delhotel en algún viaje a Estados Unidos. Este relativo anonimato hacia que cuandoviajaba a México a trabajar, la gente me tratara sin la ceremonia y la consideraciónque le dan a alguien a quien conocen porque le ven todos los días en su televisor,esto hizo que cubrir parte de la última campaña presidencial de CuauhtemocCárdenas en el año 2000 resultara mas interesante de lo que yo esperaba.

Un domingo en el zócalo de la ciudad de México, había una concentraciónenorme de gente a favor de Cárdenas, cualquiera hubiera pensado solo de ver lasmiles de banderas amarillas, lo apasionado de la gente, lo fuerte del discurso delcandidato, que Cárdenas, seria el siguiente presidente mexicano.

En el momento más emotivo y álgido de este mitin político, pedí permiso parasubir con mis cámaras al techo de un enorme camión que los seguidores del PRD,el partido de Izquierda de Cárdenas, tenían instalado en uno de los mejores sitiosdel Zócalo. La gente al ver la cobertura de las cámaras de Unívisión se entusiasmo y no solo nos ayudo a subir al tope del camión sino que hasta nos subió el equipo.




Imagínese usted lo que siguió, mi stand up, mi presentación en cámara que decíalo siguiente:

… “No hay ninguna duda de que en esta campaña presidencial Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas continua siendo una figura política de gran relevancia nacional.Aquí en laciudad de México, su partido, el PRD, tiene a la mayor cantidad de seguidores de todoel país.

¡Pero no se engañe usted! A pesar de todo este aparato, a pesar de toda esta gente,a pesar de todo este ruido,

Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas no ganara la presidencia de México, simplemente, por que notiene el mismo tipo de apoyo en los estados y las ciudades mas importantes de México,de los que tiene aquí. La capital podrá votar por el para Presidente, pero el resto de este país… nunca lo hará.”

Al termino de la cobertura, la gente nos bajo a empujones del camión, nos

insulto y nos dijo vende patrias y traidores. Uno de esos gritos se me quedo en eloído, alguien nos increpo: Ustedes están vendidos al oro gringo.

Pocos días después siguiendo a Cárdenas por el interior de México llegamos aTlaxcala, en el centro del país y ahí también en el zócalo de su capital, elcandidato presidencial tuvo un mitin político… que resulto tan deslucido comomuchos otros que tuvo en muchos otros estados… No cabía duda ya de que Foxera el fenómeno… Por eso al terminar este acto político en el que no había masde 300 personas me acerque al candidato y poniéndole mi micrófono enfrente lepedí que me explicara, como es que nisiquiera era capaz de llenar un zócalo tan

pequeño como el de Tlaxcala. Los ojosde Cárdenas se enrojecieron y con rabia y enfocándose en mí, me increpo…

“Si ya he oído de ustedes, ya se quealguien les esta pagando para que vengana inventar y contar mentiras. Yo no lesvoy a responder, digan lo que quieran.Sigan mintiendo… que para eso lespagan.” Enojo justificado. Pero lo impor-tante aquí no era eso sino la vieja acusación a la prensa mexicana… “alguien lesesta pagando para que vengan a inventar y contar mentiras”.

La perspectiva es muy distinta a la de Estados Unidos, pero la acusación no eratan descabellada, si es cierto que en el pasado las informaciones tendenciosas eranparte del costo de las campañas. Y es cierto también que las empresas decomunicación servían a sus propios intereses políticos.Todo se justificaba entoncescomo una… “cuestión de enfoque”.

La aventura de reportar hoy para dos países con prensas tan distintas, con eltiempo se ha hecho mas estrecha. México es un país distinto en el 2005, al que


La comunidad latina de Estados Unidos cinco

años después es también una comunidaddiferente y lo que en el 2000 era solo una tele-visora importante en Español con serviciosinformativos fuertes y honestos ha cambiadoa ser cuatro redes de televisión con igualambición de penetración nacional, con sistemas noticiosos serios e imparciales.



era en el año 2000. El fenómeno de elección de un candidato de oposiciónafecto directamente a los medios de información. Hoy tienen mucha mas libertadque jamás en su historia. Hoy es más difícil justificar en los medios más grandes eimportantes la acusación de Cárdenas de que alguien le paga para mentir yhacerle ver mal es hoy mas difícil de que ocurra que nunca antes. Por otra parte,la comunidad latina de Estados Unidos cinco años después es también unacomunidad diferente y lo que en el 2000 era solo una televisora importante enEspañol con servicios informativos fuertes y honestos ha cambiado a ser cuatroredes de televisión con igual ambición de penetración nacional, con sistemas noti-ciosos serios e imparciales.

Lo mas excitante de todo esto es que en dos o tres años cuando revisemos estostextos, nos vamos a encontrar que, en solo un tiempo corto… hay que hacerlemodificaciones importantes, por que los dos países, sus medios y la forma en quese reporta entre las dos fronteras van a seguir cambiando, y si este cambio es comohasta hoy... el reporte será positivo.




Hice un supuesto sencillo sobre la promesa de Vicente Fox de dar el voto para per-mitir que los mexicanos en Estados Unidos votáramos, si esto no se da todo mi pre-supuesto tal vez sea falso. El destino político de México está en Estados Unidos.Siempre que hablamos de México, va nuestra mente a esa formageográfica que nos pintaban cuando niños como un cuerno de la abundancia. Laexplosión demográfica que multiplicó por tres la población en 40 años, y el saqueoeconómico que inició en 1976, cambiaron el perfil del país. Es a partir de entonces,que después de cada crisis y devaluación, se abre una válvula de escape para obreros y campesinos.

Estados Unidos da oportunidades y demanda mano de obra barata sin parar.

Pescadores en Alaska, campesinos en las cosechas de uva y fresa en California, desta- jadores de reses en el medio-oeste, empacadores de cangrejos en la costa del este ycamaristas por todas partes, llenan espacios que los norteamericanos descartan.

Los mexicano-americanos y los inmigrantes sin documentos, que llegan a unos 20millones, producen tanto como su país de origen, unos 650 mil millones de dólaresal año y crean con su trabajo una nación dentro de otra nación. Multiplican su pro-ductividad por cinco en un sistema donde sus méritos se remuneran.

Pero si descubrir a los mexicanos en Estados Unidos se trata, podemos seguir eldinero e investigar su procedencia, a la hansa periodistas de investigación. Losnúmeros hablan. El flujo de divisas de los paisanos se triplicó en cinco años y en el2004 podría superar los trece mil millones de dólares.Tan solo en febrero pasado, seincrementaron los envíos en un 20 por ciento, respecto a febrero del año anterior.

El promedio del envío mensual es $300 dólares, cantidad insuficiente pero vitalpara al menos tres millones de familias, que también ayudan a estabilizar nuestra mon-eda, e indirectamente ayudan al Banco de México a fortalecer sus reservas. Esosenvíos comprarán algo más que vestido y alimentos, serán un factor político enMéxico. Del silencio podrían pasar al activismo.

Vicente Fox tuvo la mira puesta en los paisanos y los corajudos de su campaña.Conocía la influencia de los emigrantes histórico anti-priismo, particularmente enLos Ángeles. Esa visión le ganó un lugar y simpatía en las elecciones quecambiaron a México en el 2000. Con el voto de los emigrados, veremos a los

candidatos a la presidencia en campaña por las principales ciudades, por ejemplo: LosÁngeles, Chicago, Dallas, Nueva York. Cuesta trabajo imaginarlo, peronuestro destino podría definirse en las urnas de Los Ángeles, no como mayoría, sinocomo el fiel de un balance en una votación cerrada.

Salvo los medios electrónicos que unen promoción en los dos lados de lafrontera, los medios impresos en México tienen pendiente contar la historia de lamigración con dos enfoques: la demografía del des-establecimiento de los gruposregionales, hasta el detalle de historias individuales de ejemplos precisos, de


Enrique Gómez” AM León”

“Lazos y Oportunidades”



triunfos y fracasos. Un ejemplo de esa narración y documentación fue el trabajo peri-odístico de Sonia Nazario, reportera de Los Ángeles Times. Nazario siguió la travesíade Enrique, un niño Hondureño desprendido de su madre en la infancia hasta sureencuentro en el establecimiento familiar en Estados Unidos. Lainvestigación, publicada en varias entregas, mereció el premio Pulitzer. Enriquepuede ser cualquier mexicano o centroamericano.

En Guanajuato, Michoacán y Zacatecas, la geografía humana muestra pueblosenteros vacíos de barones. Nuestro desierto del norte y la falta de trabajo y

oportunidades, expulsa a jóvenes, y a losúltimos años también a mujeres y a niños.Esto es la muestra del fracaso de los planesnacionales para conceder la explosióndemográfica y la falta de empleo.

Podemos reportar historias de las largascaminatas por el desierto de Arizona, de

los trucos inteligentes para pasar por lafrontera, camuflados con la visa de un her-

mano o una hermana. Podemos contarle con la misma floreciente del tráfico humano y los horrores que sufren cuando los paisanos se convierten en mercancía en cárcelesde seguridad en Tucson o Phoenix. Podemos narrar la discriminación inclusivo de ser ciudadanos sin documentos. Podemos seguir como Nazario en miles de veredas.

Subyacente vive la historia mayor, en la que nuestros gobiernos no quierenaceptar: la lenta, pero inexorable fusión de dos naciones a través de las fuerzaseconómicas y familiares. Cada mexicano que pasa al otro lado lleva consigo un hiloinvisible que lo conecta con su origen. Cada año, 300,000 hilos, más fortalecen esa

red, y hacen dependiente a México y a Estados Unidos de su fuerza de trabajo.Los nuevos medios siguen en el mercado. El número de diarios en los EstadosUnidos decrece con la muerte de vespertinos, con la fusión de empresas en acuerdosde operación conjunta y una lectoría decreciente. La falta de competencia entume alos grandes rotativos y todo con la excepción de los diarios en español. Chicago Tribune publica, Hoy, el Dallas Morning News inaugura el periódico Al Día, y un grupo edi-torial de España plantea varios periódicos para Tejas. Ese interés súbito por lo hispanoabunda en el trabajo de muchas de las publicaciones semanales que amalgaman anuestras comunidades.

Pronto las alianzas entre empresas de comunicación mexicanas yestadounidenses seguirá sin mercado, como lo hace Luis Azcárraga, dueño deTelevisa, quien se muda a Miami. Tendrá doble nacionalidad para obtener permisode poseer mayorías en empresas de comunicación. Los empresarios buscan el dinerocreciente del mercado de inmigrantes y descendientes de mexicanos. Buscan a los his-panos como el grupo de mayor crecimiento demográfico. Los políticos buscan elprobable voto para llegar a la presidencia de México. Con ellos, los periodistas bus-caremos las historias en nuestros paisanos y sus jornadas para construir una nacióndentro de otra.


Subyacente vive la historia mayor, en la quenuestros gobiernos no quieren aceptar: lalenta, pero inexorable fusión de dos nacionesa través de las fuerzas económicas y famil-iares. Cada mexicano que pasa al otro ladolleva consigo un hilo invisible que lo conecta

con su origen.



M y experience is different than a lot of other journalists who cover Mexicans inthe United States. I am based in Mexico City. I have been there for 11 years as theMexico City bureau chief for Copley News Service.

Last year, The State Journal-Register , our Copley paper in Springfield, Illinois,asked me if I would travel to Beardstown, a town of 7,000 people 45 miles westof Springfield, which was changing because Hispanics, mostly Mexicans, hadbeen lured there by jobs in a meatpacking plant. For the first time in 11 years, Icame to the United States with the mission of trying to reach people in theHispanic community and to write about how they viewed life in America.

The editor of the Springfield paper, Barry Locher, asked me to go therebecause he did not feel he had reporters on his staff who either spoke Spanish or who were familiar enough with Mexicans and the Mexican community to reallytell their story. Barry said the paper had sporadic coverage of Hispanics living inBeardstown. He said they had written the stories that everybody writes: the Cincode Mayo celebration, the 15-year-old’s birthday party, and the Spanish languageMass at the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, he said they had not really gotteninto the community. “I know there is a great story there,” he said. “We would liketo ask you to do it for us.”

He asked me to do this two years prior, in 2001. It took me two years to find

the time, since I cover Mexico by myself, to get to Beardstown. When I arrivedin Springfield, the editors were concerned. They said, “We’re not sure that theHispanics are going to talk to you.”They said we suspect, but we cannot confirm,that a lot of people there are undocumented. I told them I did not think therewould be a problem. Within a couple of days I had begun to reach people in theHispanic community.

Of course, that was only half the story. We were going to cover the Anglo com-munity as well, people who lived in Beardstown all their life. It was an all-whitetown until 15 years ago. They had never had an African-American settle there, or at least no one could ever remember Beardstown ever having an African-Americanresident. There were threatening signs hanging out in the park, in the earlier days,saying what would happen to blacks if they stayed in Beardstown overnight.

That was their history. So, of course, I said we are going to talk to the Anglocommunity. When I got to Beardstown, a couple of things happened which werevery helpful in the reporting of my four-part series, which we called,“Beardstown: Reflection of a Changing America.” I will try to offer some ideason how I reached the Hispanic community for a paper that felt Hispanics werebeing under-covered.


S. Lynne Walker”Copley News Service ”

“Covering Mexico in the Heartland”of the United States”



As I said, I was able to make inroads into the Mexican community within a cou-ple of days. I went first to the leaders in the Hispanic community in Beardstown, butthey had always been quoted in the paper. I think that is sort of a pattern we fall intoin journalism. We end up sometimes talking to the same people over and over again,and we do not get past those people who are good, but they are always out there, toget to other people.

So I went to the people who were in touch with the Hispanic community first,but simply to introduce myself, to put forth my proposal on the story, to tell themhow serious we were and how committed we were about doing it, and to say, “Can you please help me because I need to reach other people in the community? I havea lot of time and we have a big commitment, so I am not going to rush anybodythrough this.” They said they would help me and they did.

One of the suggestions that somebody gave me was, “Well, why don’t you go toMass? Go in the church, let people see you there. You know, if the priest wants tointroduce you, that is better yet. Just be there and let them see how you are in this

non-threatening situation.”I think I was there during Semana Santa, and there were activities at the Catholic

Church, a lot of activities. So I went.A couple of things happened that day that madean impression on me.

First of all, this Mexican lady came up to me. She was looking at me a lot and soI turned around, said hello, and introduced myself as Susan. When I speak to peoplein Spanish, I use my first name, which is Susan. It is a lot easier for people to remem-ber than Lynne, which is sort of an odd name for Spanish speakers.

So I said my name is Susan, and I am a journalist. Then I asked, “What is your name?”She looked at me and she looked back and forth and then she said, “María.”

She was holding my hand. We went into the church and the whole service occurred.I noticed she stayed behind to pray while I was outside on the steps of the churchtalking to other people and introducing myself. Then she came up to me and said,“I want to tell you something. That is not my name. My name is Evangelina.”

I think she really wanted to tell me this. It was on her conscience.That is when Irealized for the first time that I was dealing with a whole bunch of people who wereusing dual names and dual identities to work at the meatpacking plant.They had thispersonal crisis about denying who they were just so they could work, denying their names, who they were and where they came from so they could have these jobs.Thathad an impact on me.

Then, while I was still outside the church and I was talking to people, I startedasking this Mexican man a lot of questions. Suddenly, I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I haven’tintroduced myself or told you why I am asking you all these questions.” And he said,“I know who you are.” I said, “You do?” And he said, “Well, yes, because you hada story in the Springfield paper two years ago and it was about my pueblo.”

On Valentine’s Day, two years earlier, I had written a story about flowers inMexico, which was just a nice story about how they are produced and then shippedto the United States for all those beautiful bouquets that everybody gets on




Valentine’s Day. It was out of Villa Guerrero in the State of Mexico, and he had seenit and remembered.

That blew me away, and I said, “Can I come to your house?” He said, “Of course you can.” And I went to his house and he told his sons, “Boys, boys, getout that newspaper and show her.” They still had my tear sheet from two yearsago. They had made some pencil marks on it, the way little kids do. Of course,he scolded them and said, “I’m so embarrassed. These boys.” And I said that I was just absolutely thrilled.

I told the editor of the paper about that incident. I said, “Look, you don’thave any idea what kind of impact a story like that can have and when we aregoing to receive the benefits of publishing a story like that.” It helped me get intothe Hispanic community, to get going. Evangelina, the lady who told me a dif-ferent name let me come over to her house, wanted me to have tacos with her,talk about her experiences.

From there I began to go much more quickly as the word spread about who

I was and what I was doing. In the end I worked on this particular project for seven months, lived in the town for five weeks, made four trips there. I just keptgoing back.

The other way that I think I was able to build a level of trust with people isthat when I went into their homes, I told them I had just come from Mexico.They said, “You have just come from Mexico?” And I said, “Yes, I have justcome.” They would say, “Oh, come in,” and we would start talking aboutMexico and we would talk aboutPresident Fox and we would talk aboutwhere they were from. And I would talk

about where I had been in Mexico andwhat kind of food I had eaten while Iwas there. I think it allowed them toovercome who I was and just sit downand talk to me about how they felt.

One of the things I needed to talk tothem about was racism and how they felt they had been treated in that town. Aswe got to know each other better, they would talk to me about that and tell methey felt like there was a lot of racism still. They are trying so hard to get along,so hard to be neighbors there, trying so hard not to make waves. But, “Yes,” theysaid, “there was racism when I came and yes, there is racism today.” I know it is asensitive subject and I really wanted them to talk to me about it and I appreciat-ed the candor with which they spoke.

I learned a lot about how to approach this subject in the United States, whichis different than covering Mexicans in Mexico, of course, where people feelcomfortable. They are not hiding from anybody in Mexico.

You have to establish a relationship built on trust before you can reach thepoint where people will talk honestly with you.


One of the things I needed to talk to them aboutwas racism and how they felt they had been

treated in that town. As we got to know eachother better, they would talk to me about thatand tell me they felt like there was a lot ofracism still.



What I discovered after people began to speak candidly with me is that up to80 percent of the workers at this pork processing plant were undocumented.Eighty percent! It was extremely high, and everybody knew it. One of the partsof my series was called “Living with a Lie,” because the whole town knew whatwas going on and they had come to either accept it or ignore it, but there it was.

Obviously a lot of people were at risk because I was there and nosing around.The big question in my mind was that, okay, these people are inside a plant; theyare in what is really a factory; they receive a paycheck every week; how do theydo that if they are undocumented? I know how you do it on a farm in California.That is a labor contractor situation. But how do they do it inside a plant? WhatI found out was that these people were actually buying identities of U.S. citizens,buying identities of existing citizens who chose for whatever reasons to sell them,and they adopted that identity.

That is why María was really Evangelina, and why Miriam was really Dora. Iasked them when I began to know them, “ What is your name?”And they would

say, “Do you want my work name or my real name?” And I said, well, I wouldlike for you to use your real name and let’s talk about who you are.

I even asked this woman whose daughter was using another name. Vanessa washer assumed name, and I said how do you feel about your daughter using thisdifferent name? You picked the other name for her. You gave her that name. Wetalked about that, about when her daughter was born and how she chose thisname for her daughter. And here they are with all of these other, different names.We had some very intense and intimate conversations.

The other risk they ran by buying these identities was that often the peopleselling identities were criminals. I mean, they were either wanted for crimes or

convicted. People had been arrested out at the plant on murder charges, but theydid not commit the murders. The people whose identity they bought commit-ted the murders.

So then they had this huge legal problem. It is not just a matter of saying,“No, I just bought the identity.” That is not enough once you are in custody.

They had to get a lawyer and get them-selves out of this mess. Often, peoplewere arrested on drug traffickingcharges, but they were not traffickingdrugs. The people whose identities theybought were.

It was very enlightening and waybeyond what we thought we were goingto find. Actually it was very gratifying. Ithink we were able to tell Americanreaders a lot of things. I hope it went

beyond typical reporting. I hope we were able to tell them how people feel inthese situations, the experiences they go through, what they do to get a job,


We are trying to write for U.S. readers whowant to understand Mexico, who are interest-ed in it, maybe who do not know anythingabout it, but who are open to learning some-

thing. I have told them there are businessmenand women in their states with multi-million-dollar deals going back and forth betweenMexico and the United States.



what they do to keep a job, and what a community does in the end to insulatethem.

The question you asked is important: Who are we writing for?That is something we wrestle with in the newspaper business all the time. I

have had this discussion many times with editors. Who are we writing for? Andthey will say, “Well, we are not going to run your stories from Mexico Citybecause we do not have any Hispanics in our town.”

First of all, I say that is absurd. I am sure you have Hispanics in your town.But, number two, we are not trying to write these stories exclusively for Hispanics. I got lucky. A man from Villa Guerrero read my story, but I would nothave expected that. We are trying to write for U.S. readers who want to under-stand Mexico, who are interested in it, maybe who do not know anything aboutit, but who are open to learning something. I have told them there are business-men and women in their states with multi-million-dollar deals going back andforth between Mexico and the United States.

In Illinois, for example, there are grain transactions. These people want toknow what is going on in Mexico. I said these are the kind of people we arewriting for. You have politicians who want to know because issues like immi-gration are on the table. You have Mexican-Americans who are reading the paper and who want to know and consider us a legitimate news source. Those are thepeople I think we are writing for and I think we have an obligation to tell themas much as we can, and as fairly and accurately as we can, about what is reallygoing on in communities where Hispanics live.




Las políticas migratorias entre México y Estados Unidos, poco o nulo impactotienen en la zona del Bajío, una de las regiones del país en donde es mas notorioel fenómeno de la emigración. En el Bajío se conoce poco sobre lo que hace elgobierno mexicano para la defensa de los emigrantes, de los mexicanos que hanido a Estados Unidos en busca de un mejor empleo; lo que es peor, ni siquiera elgobierno mexicano informa al respecto de sus acciones de apoyo a los conna-cionales. En el Bajío se dice que un emigrante mexicano vale mas muerto quevivo y es que si un paisano muere en los Estados Unidos, al menos los gobiernosmunicipales le otorgan apoyo económico a las familias para su sepelio y en oca-

siones hasta una compensación le dan a la viuda; cuando esta vivo ni siquiera loconsideran en las necesidades sociales que presenta, principalmente de ayuda paraevitar que emigre o como respaldo en su trayecto ilegal hacia la Unión Americana.

Las políticas federales de emigración tienen un nulo impacto en esta región, yse limitan a campañas de información mediante carteles, pidiendo a losdesempleados de esta región que no emigren a Estados Unidos, pues en ellopueden perder la vida. Sin embargo hay muchos de esos michoacanos que estánperdiendo la vida con la preocupación diaria de no tener el empleo necesario parapoder darle el sustento económico que requiere la familia.

Aquí, en una de las zonas de mayor exportación de mano de obra hacia elnorte, se desconoce por una parte, que cada año el gobierno federal destinafondos millonarios para la creación de empresas entre el sector emigrante, para fre-nar su aventura de busca de empleo en Estados Unidos, y por la otra que este añolos diputados federales han creado un programa de asistencia social para que lasfamilias de los emigrantes, tengan acceso a los servicios de salud en sus lugares deorigen, fomentar la educación entre los hijos de los emigrantes y para mejorar lascondiciones de vida en las colonias y comunidades de donde salen los paisanos.

El monto de los recursos que ha destinado el gobierno federal para frenar laemigración se encuentra muy claro, con nombres de programas y cifras en eldictamen de la comisión de presupuesto y cuenta publica, bajo el proyecto dedecreto de presupuesto de egresos de la federación para el ejercicio fiscal 2005.

Pero esos recursos probablemente no se den a conocer formalmente en esta partede Michoacán.

Mientras, aquí en el norte de Michoacán sigue floreciendo la cultura delGüinlay (winner life) como se hacen llamar todos los emigrantes, a quienes ya lesmolesta el titulo de paisanos o ilegales, mucho menos mencionarlos como moja-dos o braceros. Aquí el Güinlay es aquel paisano que tras terminar sus estudios deprimaria o dejar inconclusos los de secundaria, busca la forma de viajar a Estados


“ J. Jesús Lemus Barajas

“La Voz de Michoacán“Los Triunfadores en la Vida”“dedicado a Manny



Unidos, en donde luego de dos o tres años de trabajo logra regresar al barrio, conla familia y los amigos. Claro que no se puede ser un ganador en la vida si no setiene una camioneta pick up con vidrios polarizados, con llantas anchas y un buenstereo, ademas de portar un anillo con un piedra y una cadena de oro con elnombre grabado en letras góticas.

Para los emigrantes el papel que hace el gobierno federal, en torno a suactuación social, realmente queda al margen de sus necesidades; no hay el respal-do necesario cuando se le necesita, es mas ni siquiera se conoce cual es la políti-ca oficial de México sobre el flujo de paisanos que a diario intentan, y algunoslogran, cruzar la frontera con Estados Unidos. Son los medios de comunicaciónlos que en la mayoría de los casos infor-man a la población, en una forma muygenérica, sobre las acciones manifiestaspor el gobierno federal para la seguridadde los mexicanos en el extranjero.

Pero en ocasiones los propios mediosde comunicación, sea radio, televisión oprensa escrita, se quedan cortos ante lasnecesidades de los emigrantes, pues se difunden solo programas que a decir dealgunos editores “tienen un verdadero sentido social”. En la mayoría de los casos,los medios de comunicación califican a los propios programas oficiales comoactos populistas del gobierno, que solo sirven para tomarse la foto con los fun-cionarios en turno, para ganar puntos en su carrera política o elevar su presenciade imagen publica.

Los medios de comunicación son en parte un freno para que las políticas

oficiales de emigración de los gobiernos de México y Estados Unidos se puedanconocer plenamente entre los grupos que se hallan interesados en ello. Encuestasrealizadas en la zona del bajío Michoacán revelan que solo tres de cada 250paisanos, que han ido en alguna ocasión a los Estados Unidos conoce en formasuperficial la política migratoria de México, la gran mayoría no sabe ni para quesirve un consulado, la embajada o una representación diplomática.

Tal desconocimiento existe entre los mexicanos que emigran hacia la uniónamericana, sobre la política migratoria, que ellos, cuando llegan a Estados Unidos,si buscan protección de alguna forma no acuden al gobierno federal, a través desu representación en los consulados, mas bien se unen a agrupaciones sociales ode tipo religioso, en donde estiman que pueden recibir mayor ayuda que de supropio gobierno.

Solo en el bajío de Michoacán hay mas de 17 mil trabajadores emigrantes queviajan a Estados Unidos en forma regular, los cuáles en su mayoría lo hacencruzando la frontera en forma ilegal, siendo portadores de la transculturación quese vive en esta parte del país, en donde el ser Güinlay, es mas que una forma deganar dinero para existir, es una forma de vida que le da un estatus social a quienllega a esa posición, no importa que la mayor parte del año el mexicano se pase


Los medios de comunicación son en parte unfreno para que las políticas oficiales de emi-gración de los gobiernos de México y Estados

Unidos se puedan conocer plenamente entrelos grupos que se hallan interesados en ello.



trabajando duro en el campo, en los restaurantes u hoteles, o en empleos que noson aceptados por los propios norteamericanos, si eso tiene su recompensa conuna visita a su región, que dure por lo menos 15 días, manejando una camionetadel año y portando ostentosamente joyas y dinero.

Para los medios de comunicación los Güinlay son solo noticia cuando muereno cuando están en desgracia. Pocos son los medios que se han atrevido a ser unpuente de comunicación entre los que se permanecen en México y los que se vanal otro lado. La Voz de Michoacán es el único periódico de México que mantieneuna pagina informativa con contenido exclusivo del acontecer diario de los mex-icanos que emigran a Estados Unidos, es un medio de comunicación quemantiene el vinculo entre las familias de los paisanos que se quedan acá y los jefesque se van al otro lado. En La Voz de Michoacán el emigrante no solo es noticia, esuna ocupación diaria, como sector social y motor económico de esta región. Eneste periódico, a diferencia de otros, se mantiene una comunicación dinámica,con retroalimentación, convirtiendo al paisano en el hombre ubicuo que desde

cualquier punto del país es un emisor fiel de lo que le sucede a él y a otros comoél, que son hermanos del mismo dolor y del mismo gusto.

Si los paisanos poco conocen sobre la política migratoria de México, menossaben sobre la legislación y las disposiciones al respecto que se aplican en losEstados Unidos. Para el tráfico de personas, a final de cuentas— puedenargumentar—de poco les sirve eso, para ellos hay una verdad que no se puedesoslayar: ellos tienen que cruzar la frontera a como dé lugar y los de la Border Patrol lo tratarán de impedir, es un juego como del gato y del ratón, como de policías yladrones, como de buenos y malos, un juego en el que han caído miles de mex-icanos por no conocer las posibilidades reales que tienen de ser emigrantes con

éxito, con un futuro mejor que no se limite a manejar una camioneta del año, unaal vez año, a no vestir con pantalonesLevis, traer tenis Converse o una chamar-ra de los Lakers solo para demostrar unestatus de vida.

Los emigrantes por desconocer laspolíticas de emigración de México yEstados Unidos, se ven limitados a no

aspirar a ser trabajadores permanentes o semipermanentes en el norte, pese a quetienen capacidad laboral y una responsabilidad para el trabajo como en pocasnaciones de América se puede ver; si los mexicanos pudieran entender las formasque pueden utilizar para viajar a Estados Unidos, cumpliendo con las normas quese establecen en ese país, tendrían un mejor sueldo, una mejor posición dentro dela sociedad anglosajona y tal vez, si se lo proponen, podrían dejar de ser losempleados domésticos de los norteamericanos.

Al amparo del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN),en el capítulo de la fuerza laboral de los tres países involucrados, existe laposibilidad de que los mexicanos no sean gatos de los estadunidenses ni de los


Si se trata de culpables hay que pensar en losmedios de comunicación, que se callan masde lo que dicen y en los gobiernos que nodicen sus políticas en la forma en que lasdeben decir.



canadienses, sino una competencia para el trabajo, una competencia mas justa, quese finque en las perfiles de formación de cada uno de los que buscan una mejor posibilidad social. Un mexicano tiene derecho a tener un puesto gerencial enCanadá o Estados Unidos, al igual que un canadiense o estadunidense puedeaspirar a ser ejecutivo de una empresa mexicana, pero no hay el conocimientosuficiente para aspirar a esos términos.

A veces, los mismos mexicanos cierran los ojos a la realidad y prefiere pensar en la posibilidad del billete verde, tras una dura jornada de trabajo en el field oluego de lavar cientos de platos y vasos, en algún restaurante o bar; piensan en ser un Güinlay sin importar que existen otras formas de acceder a una mejor formade vida, con mas decoro, con mas dignidad y con menos riesgo para la integridadfísica y de las familias. No se les puede culpar de todo a emigrantes, que en sumayoría son personas con una escasa formación académica, aunque también loshay profesionales que no han podido encontrar un empleo bien pagado en suregión de origen. La culpa tampoco puede ser de los que ya nacieron pobres y no

ven otra opción que morir así, a menos que puedan alcanzar el American Dream,que para muchos esta vedado. No se puede culpar de estos errores a una sociedadque cada vez mas se convulsiona con la mano de obra calificada a bajo precio, lasobre oferta de trabajadores y la escasez de fuentes de empleo. No se puedeculpar al país, al que le ha tocado ser el traspatio de los Estados Unidos, la primeraeconomía mundial. Si se trata de culpables hay que pensar en los medios decomunicación, que se callan mas de lo que dicen y en los gobiernos que no dicensus políticas en la forma en que las deben decir. Mientras no exista unacorresponsabilidad entre los gobiernos y los sectores emigrantes, tendremos queestar viendo en las calles de nuestros pueblos fantasmas a cientos de niños que salen

de las primarias con la única intención de llegar a ser un día un buen Güinlay.




94 Writing Beyond Boundaries: Journalism Across the U.S. -Mexico Border

ABREVIATIONS / ABREVIACIONESBritish Broadcasting CompanyThe Columbia Broadcasting SystemConsejo Nacional de PoblaciónCenter for Strategic and International StudiesDrug Enforcement AgencyDistrict of ColumbiaDistrito FederalFederal Bureau of InvestigationGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and TradeU.S. Immigration and Customs EnforcementInstituto Nacional de Estadística Geográfica e InformáticaNorth American Free Trade AgreementNational Public RadioPartido Acción NacionalPartido de la Revolución Democrática

Partido Revolucionario Institucional

BBC

CBS

CONAPO

CSIS

DEADC

DF

FBI

GATT

ICE

INEGI

NAFTA

NPR

PAN

PRD

PRI



PASCAL BELTRÁN-DEL-RIO Pascal Beltran-del-Rio, 38, has been a journalistsince 1988. He first worked for newsweekly Proceso, covering politics. In 1994,he became the magazine’s Washington correspondent. Back in Mexico City, in1999, he was appointed Managing Editor. A graduate of Mexico’s NationalUniversity (UNAM), Mr. Beltran-del-Rio has taught journalism at theUniversidad Iberoamericana and has been an invited speaker at several confer-ences, in Mexico and abroad. He is the author of the book “Michoacán, ni unpaso atrás. La política como intransigencia” (1993). In addition to his work as aprint journalist, he became involved in radio journalism in 2000, first as a com-mentator and columnist, and, since October 2003, as the anchor for the morningnewscast of the Instituto Mexicano de la Radio (IMER). In January 2004 he washired by La Revista, a new weekly publication of Mexico City daily El Universal ,where he is Assistant Director and writes the column “Contratiempo”. Mr.Beltran-del-Rio’s stories have been published by a wide range of national and

international media, among them the Buenos Aires daily La Nación.

PHILIP BENNETT Philip Bennett is Managing Editor of The Washington Post.Previously he served as Assistant Managing Editor for Foreign News for The Washington Post . Bennett joined the Post in 1997 as deputy national editor for national security coverage.

Prior to joining The Washington Post , Mr. Bennett worked with The BostonGlobe for 13 years. He joined the Globe in 1984 and initially served as a metroreporter on the night staff. Two years later he became the Globe ’s Latin Americacorrespondent and was based in Mexico City. After serving four years there, he

returned to Boston to write about race, immigration and related matters. In1994 he became the New England editor on the paper’s metro desk, and in 1995he was named the Globe ’s foreign editor.

Bennett first worked as a reporter for the small, English language Lima Timesin Peru in 1981. Bennett was born in San Francisco and has a degree in historyfrom Harvard University where he wrote for Harvard Magazine . He is marriedand has one daughter.

JOSÉ CARREÑO José Carreño, a native of Mexico City is a Washington corre-spondent for the Mexico City based newspaper El Universal. Having studied Journalism at the National School of Political and Social Sciences (UniversidadNacional Autonoma de Mexico- UNAM), Mr. Carreño has an extensive career in journalism spanning over 30 years.

Before joining El Universal in 1990, Carreño served as Washington Bureauchief and regional director of NOTIMEX, the Mexican News Agency for anumber of years. Under their auspice, he also served as their Washington corre-spondent, the moving up the ladder to Assistant Director for International News.


CONTRIBUTORS / AUTORES



In 1993 he was a distinguished visiting lecturer at the Foreign Service Institutewith the Department of State. In that same year he was also asked to speak at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Service at the John F.Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Mr. José Carreño has alsobeen a contributer and guest commentator on Univision, CNN, NBC (spanish),World Net, CBC, Deutsche Welle (spanish) and other prominent networks.

JIM CASON Jim Cason is a U.S. correspondent for the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. Cason has been writing about the United States for La Jornada for morethan a decade. Working with bureau chief David Brooks, Cason is involved inimplementing a La Jornada project designed to bring a broader vision of theUnited States to readers of the newspaper. Jim Cason has worked as a journalist,writer, and researcher for more than two decades.

ALFREDO CORCHADO Alfredo Corchado has worked for the Dallas Morning News

for the past 10 years. He covers U.S. policy to Latin America, with a special focuson Mexico. Mr. Corchado was the lead reporter for the Dallas Morning News in itscovergae of the 2000 presidential election in Mexico and has won several awardsfor his coverage of Mexicans in the United States through special projects includ-ing “The Mexicanization of the United States” and the “Disappearing Border.”

He has also written extensively on Cuba, having traveled the island on numer-ous occasions. From 2000 to 2003, he worked out of the Dallas Morning NewsWashington, DC bureau, covering U.S. policy to Latin America and growing bina-tional issues, or as his editors put it, “the Mexico within and the Mexico abroad.”

Previously, Mr. Corchado worked for the El Paso Herald-Post and the Wall Street

Journal . He’s currently on assignment, working on an investigation into the mur-der of scores of women in Ciudad Juarez. Mr. Corchado lives in Mexico City andtravels to Washington at least once per quarter.

SANDRA DIBBLE Having been born in Egypt and as a daughter of U.S. ForeignService Officer, Sandra Dibble is no stranger to the world of politics and border issues ranging from politics and drug trafficking to growth and culture. Sandra, along-time reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune since 1994, was one of a fivemember team who won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coveringReagan administration’s clandestine support for the Nicaraguan rebels in 1987.

Before joining the Tribune , Sandra was working at the Miami Herald reportingon immigration issues and the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian communities.

Fluent in Spanish and French, Sandra then moved on to work for the National Geographic Magazine as a writer specializing in Latin American issues, coveringParaguay and Oaxaca.

As a graduate of Columbia’s School of Journalism, Sandra went on to becomea Fellow with the international journalism program at the University of SouthernCalifornia where she was 8 months in residence in Los Angeles and 3 months in

96 Contributors / Autores



Mexico City. Today, she calls Southern California her home where reporting onborder issues for the San Diego Union-Tribune will shed light on her views aboutwhat new stories there are to cover.

DOLIA ESTÉVEZ Dolia Estévez is Washington correspondent for Poder and El Semanario. From 1989 to 2005 she was the Washington Correspondent for El Financiero. She has published extensively on NAFTA, U.S.-Mexican relations, eco-nomics, banking, drug trafficking and corruption. She is also the author of Desde Washington, a biweekly opinion column on foreign policy and diplomatic gossip.

In 1997, she began transmitting live commentaries on the number-one ratedradio newscast in Mexico City, Radio Monitor .

She has authored chapters on the Mexican media in Washington, D.C. and onthe implications for the bilateral relationship of the Bush Administration’s pre-emptive strike in Iraq in the book series México en el Mundo.

She has lectured and given speeches to public and private audiences at The

Economic Club of Washington, the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute,the University of California (Berkeley), the Mexican Senate and the AutonomousTechnological Institute of Mexico, among others.

ROSSANA FUENTES BERAÍN Rossana Fuentes Beraín is Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs en Español . As a financial and diplomatic correspondent, Ms Fuentescovered issues that have an impact on Mexico’s current or future outlook. Bothfrom New York and Mexico City the merry go round of Latin American foreigndebt negotiations were always on her screen.

In August 1992, the 10th anniversary of a major Mexican debt crisis, she wrote

a ten part series for El Financiero tracking down the main characters of what cameto be known as the “Mexican Weekend”, including four then Central Bankers(from Mexico, U.S., Great Britain and France), several Treasury Secretaries fromall over the world and two living legends of the U.S. banking system: Walter Wriston (Citibank) and Lewis Preston (J.P. Morgan).

In May 1994 she wrote a three-part series on the closing mistakes of the CarlosSalinas administration that led to the December 20 peso devaluation as well as theoperations errors in the Zedillo administration that worsened the crisis.

As for NAFTA, Rossana Fuentes scooped the information regarding theFinancial Services chapter of the agreement. Ms Fuentes is the only Mexican print journalist to have interviewed President Bill Clinton (December 1994) and theonly one among her peers to have talked at length on a one-to-one basis to bothPresident Clinton and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, about the NorthAmerican area and its most pressing issues like security, competitiveness and firstand foremost, its people. On the business side she wrote the first profile ever of tycoon Carlos Slim. With a controlling interest in Telmex, the most widely heldMexican stock on internacional markets, Slim and his Grupo Carso are a drivingforce in many sectors of the Mexican economy.




In 1993 she followed a story on the complaints of IBM and other foreign com-panies regarding extorsion and wrongdoing on a public bidding process to buyradars and computers for Mexico City airport. The scandal and press coverage thatensued Ms. Fuentes’ stories forced the resignation of the then TransportationMinister. Half of her career was developed at Grupo Reforma where she becameAssistant Managing Editor for special assignments and the polling division. Under her tenure as head of the investigative team the shady dealings of 2 crooked gov-ernors and their accomplices, one related to drug trafficking the other to a ringof kidnappers were unveiled .

From 1983 to 1985 she wrote analysis of the U.S. print media coverage of Mexican affairs, including the 1982 debt negotiation, and the murder of DEAagent Enrique Camarena Salazar among others.

Ms Fuentes was posted in New York for two years. She is a specialist in eco-nomic and foreign policy and has traveled extensively over the world.

Rossana Fuentes lives in Colonia Roma, an old part of Mexico City. She is the

President of Investigative Reporters and Editors to chapter in Mexico (Periodistasde Investigacion) and along with a group of colleagues pushed the Freedom of Information Act in Mexico.

ENRIQUE GÓMEZ OROZCO Enrique Gómez Orozco, a native of León,Guanajuato, is the Director of Periódico a.m. where he has dedicated 25 years.While at Periodico a.m., he engaged actively with S.I.P (Sociedad Interamericanade Prensa) and was its Vice-President during the investigations about “Mexico andthe Freedom of Expression” as well as other missions investigating crimes against journalists in Mexico and Central America.

He is a current member of the Commission for the Freedom of Expression of the S.I.P. for Mexico. In recent years, he has participated in investigative missionsin Central America, in Chihuahua, southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and MexicoCity. Furthermore, as a member of the University of Guanajuato’s alumni associ-ation, Gómez participated in the “Seminario de Desarrollo de los Medios deCommunicación y Democracia en América Latina y el Caribe” organized byUNESCO in Santiago, Chile.

A graduate of the University of Guanajuato, he received his Bachelor’s in civilengineering and philosophy.

ARMANDO GUZMÁN Armando Guzmán is one of the most recognizable faces of Latino television in the United States. During almost two decades coveringWashington, Mr. Guzman, became not only a familiar newscaster but also one of the most respected and trusted electronic journalists in United States, Mexicoand Latin America. Currently he is the Washington Bureau Chief of TV Aztecaone of Mexico’s television networks and of its sister company in the UnitedStates, TV Azteca America.




Armando has worked in television news all his professional life and has been areporter, a producer a news director and an anchorman. He says that he has beenthe man in front of and behind the camera.

In Washington DC he joined TV Azteca as an International correspondent onSeptember 11th, 2001, the network assigned him to cover the terrorist attacksagainst the US and his work was recognized with numerous awards. He was thefirst Mexican American journalist broadcasting from The Theodore Roosevelt air carrier during the raids against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in October 2001.

Armando began traveling early in his life. Born in Puebla Mexico he complet-ed his high school studies in Quebec Canada. and then moved to the US. hereceived a BS in business administration and completed post graduate studies atthe University of San Francisco.

Mr. Guzman started his broadcasting career with an NBC affiliate in Californiaand then moved to Miami when the “Noticiero Nacional Univision”was launched.With Univision he was a White House and a Capitol Hill correspondent.

His extensive experience as a political journalist led him to interview the lastfour US presidents and Vice Presidents and to travel with them covering their activities extensively inside and outside the US. He has also interviewed, secre-taries of state, presidential cabinet officers, Governors, and many members of Congress from the United States, and abroad.

Armando was trusted by Univision and TV Azteca to interview world figuresand heads of state such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Boris Yeltsin, NelsonMandela, Yasser Arafat and Margaret Thatcher, as well as many current and for-mer presidents of Mexico and Latin America.

Last year Armando relocated temporarily to Mexico City to host “Hechos

AM”, the Mexican version of the Today Show and later returned to Washington,D.C. to head Azteca’s news bureau.During 10 years he was the host and executive producer of “Temas y Debates”

a highly respected Sunday morning television program similar in format to “Meetthe Press” and “Face the Nation”. Temas y Debates has been the only program of its kind ever produced by Spanish language television in the United States.

Currently, in addition to his duties at TV Azteca, he is also a syndicated colum-nist for many Spanish and English language newspapers and magazines in the USand Latin America.

MICHAEL JONES-CORREA Michael Jones-Correa, previously a fellow at theWoodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, is an Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University. He taught at Harvard University as anAssistant and Associate Professor of Government from 1994 to 2001, and has beena visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation 1998–1999.

His research interests include immigrant politics and immigration policy,minority politics and inter-ethnic relations in the United States, and urban andsuburban politics. He is the author of Between Two Nations:The Political Predicament




100

of Latinos in New York City (Cornell, 1998), and the editor of Governing AmericanCities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition and Conflict (Russell Sage Foundation,2001). Jones-Correa has also written more than a dozen articles and book chap-ters on, among other things, the diffusion of racial restrictive covenants, religionand political participation, Latino identity and politics, the role of gender in shap-ing immigrant politics, dual nationality, immigrant naturalization and voting, andHispanics as a foreign policy lobby.

He is currently completing a book looking at the re-negotiation of ethnic rela-tions in the aftermath of civil disturbances in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, andWashington D.C. and engaged in two additional projects: one on the increasingethnic diversity of suburbs, and its implication for local and national politics, andthe other the design of a new national and state-by-state survey of Latinos in theUnited States.

ALEJANDRO JUNCO DE LA VEGA Alejandro Junco has made it his life’s work to

achieve true freedom of speech in the country of his birth. Born in 1948, inMonterrey, Mexico, he was educated both in Mexico and the United States,obtaining his Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Texas atAustin in 1969.

In 1973, when he became publisher of the family newspaper in Monterrey, El Norte , Mr. Junco hired one of his former University of Texas journalism profes-sors, Mary Gardner, to train his young reporters in journalistic techniques andethics. This initiative was, in time, to change the face of journalism in Mexico.The newspaper cast aside all the practices that had compromised and muzzled afree press in that country. The strategy was an outstanding success.

Junco has built one of the most powerful newspaper conglomerates in LatinAmerica, with dailies in Mexico’s three largest cities: Mexico City (Reforma) -which today ranks number one among Mexico’s elite readership - Guadalajara(Mural ), and Monterrey (El Norte ). Aside from his accomplishments in establish-ing an independent press, Alejandro Junco has also opened greater access to theelectronic information industry in Mexico.

In 1990, El Norte diversified its services to include the delivery of electronicinformation to computer subscribers through his company, Infosel, which alsoprovides real-time financial information to the investment planners in Mexico andWall Street.

In 1995, Junco’s company launched a new Internet strategy that has made itone of the largest web access providers in Mexico and in Latin America. GrupoReforma, as his seven daily newspaper publishing group is known, has been themost instrumental factor in the evolution of journalism in the country in the last30 years. In recognition, Mr. Junco received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humanities from Michigan State University on December 2000.

Contributors / Autores



JERRY KAMMER When he was growing up in Baltimore, his dream was to be aprofessional baseball player. But some humiliating encounters with curveballs fin-ished that dream by the time he was 17. After graduating from Notre Dame, hehad no firm direction. But knew that he wanted more of an adventurous life thanwas being pursued by most of his friends, who immediately went off to some sortof graduate or professional school. In 1972, after a stint washing trucks inBaltimore, he jumped at an opportunity to work as a volunteer teacher and coachat a mission school on the Navajo Reservation, in the spectacular redrock andcanyon country of northeastern Arizona. That led to work on the Navajo Times,a tribally owned weekly, and ultimately to a book about a bitter land disputebetween the Navajos and the neighboring Hopi Tribe.

After earning a Masters in American Studies at the University of New Mexico,he taught at a branch college of the university in the small town of Gallup. In 1986freelance writing jobs evolved into a job as the Northern Mexico correspondentfor the Arizona Republic, a statewide paper published in Phoenix. There he

became fascinated with border issues, such as immigration and trade, and devel-oped a special interest in the maquiladora industry. In 1998, he transferred toPhoenix, where he joined the newspapers investigative team. For the next four years he lived and breathed the story of the local man who became a symbol of the nationwide savings and loan scandal, a colorful, outrageous Phoenix financier and con man named Charles Keating. They unraveled many of Keating’s fraudu-lent real estate and investment deals and his attempts to buy political influence atthe local, state and national levels. That work helped him win a NiemanFellowship at Harvard for the 1993-1994 academic year.

Throughout the 1990s, he maintained a fascination with Mexico, traveled

there frequently, and wrote about it as often as other projects allowed. In early2001, a few months after becoming the Republic’s correspondent in Washington,the U.S.-Mexico relationship became big news as freshly minted presidents inboth countries pledged to develop a cooperative program to manage immigration.He became so interested in stories about the U.S. and Mexico that in 2002 heaccepted an offer by the Copley News Service to cover them. He travels toMexico or to the border every chance he gets.

J. JESUS LEMUS BARAJAS Lugar de nacimiento, Moroleon, Guanajuato enoctubre de 1966. Ha cursado las carreras de Filosofia, Comunicacion y Pedagogia.Inició su labor periodistica en el semanario El Cruzado, donde fue reportero y llegóa la posicion de sub director; fue tambien corresponsal del periodico El Nacional enla zona del Bajío. Despues asumió la corresponsalía de La Voz de Michoacán en elBajío. Fue encargado de redaccion de la edicion de La Voz de Michoacán en LaPiedad. Actualmente es editor de la sección regional de La Voz de Michoacán.

Ha cursado diplomados en desarrollo regional, políticas públicas, desarrollo social,sociología para la comunicación y se ha especializado en temas de investigación en elaspecto de la emigración y movimiento de masas, ha expuesto en diversas universi-




dades del centro del país el taller de su creacion: Masas y Grupos Vulnerables frenteal Reto de la Dolarización. Ha publicados diversos reportajes y artículos de fondossobre el tema de los migrantes en la zona del Bajío de Michoacán.

MARIA MARTIN María Martin has more than 20 years experience working inLatino public broadcasting. She has worked for a number of networks, includingNational Public Radio, where she was an editor on the National Desk. She is thefounding producer of Latino USA, an NPR program heard on over 250 stations— the only English-language broadcast vehicle regularly covering the country’sLatinos, as well as Latin America. Martin has recently left LATINO USA to starther own production and training company, GraciasVida Productions. GraciasVidawas recently awarded a major grant by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting toproduce a twenty-six part series, in English and Spanish: Después de las Guerras:Central America After the Wars.

Before joining NPR, Martin was the editor and host of the Latin American

News Service (LANS), a seven-minute daily modular service of Latin Americanaffairs. She holds a Masters degree in journalism from the Ohio State University, andrecently completed Fulbright and Knight International Press Fellowships workingwith indigenous radio journalists in Guatemala. She has won over two dozen awardsfor her reporting and commitment to covering Latino and Latin American issues.

ALEJANDRO MORENO Alejandro Moreno is head of the Department of SurveyResearch at newspaper Reforma, in Mexico City. During the past five years he hasconducted and published over 700 public opinion polls for Reforma, and hasdeveloped several editorial products based on polling that cover a variety of top-

ics, such as campaigns and elections, government performance, consumer confi-dence, Mexicans’ attitudes and values, policy preferences, perceptions of corrup-tion, the quality of life in Mexican cities, a ranking of colleges and universities,among others. Moreno is also a professor of political science at the InstitutoTecnológico Autónomo de México, ITAM. He has published two books-Political Cleavages: issues, Parties and the Consolidation of Democracy (1999) and El Votante Mexicano: Democracia, actitudes políticas y conducta electoral (2003)-and recently fin-ished a forthcoming book on the cultural values of Mexico and Mexicans in theUnited States. He has also published various articles in academic journals and edit-ed books on the topics of public opinion, electoral behavior, and political values.Moreno obtained his B.A. in Social Sciences from ITAM in 1991, and his Ph.D.in political science from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, in 1997.

ANDREW D. SELEE Andrew Selee is Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’sMexico Institute, which promotes dialogue and policy research on U.S.-Mexicorelations. He is editor of Perceptions and Misconceptions in U.S.-Mexico Relations(2005), and co-editor of The Hispanic Challenge? What We Know about Latino




Immigration (2004), Mexico’s Politics and Society in Transition (2003); and Chiapas: losdesafios de la paz y la negociación (2003).

Selee is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on thesteering committee of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’sFuture. A long-time volunteer of the YMCA, he served previously on the orga-nization’s national board. He has worked in the U.S. House of Representatives, asa Peace Corps consultant in Paraguay, and for five years with migrant communi-ties in Tijuana, Mexico.

He is currently finishing his Ph.D. in policy studies at the University of Maryland and has an M.A. from the University of California, San Diego and aB.A. from Washington University.

HEIDY SERVIN-BAEZ A native of Oregon, Heidy works with the WoodrowWilson International Center for Scholar’s programmatic side under the MexicoInstitute as project assistant. She supports and directs a number of on-going proj-

ects that seek to increase understanding, communication, and cooperationbetween the United States and Mexico.

Previously, she was a Public Affairs Fellow with the White House Initiative onEducational Excellence for Hispanic Americans through the CongressionalHispanic Caucus Institute’s Fellowship Program. Under the umbrella of theDepartment of Education, she had the opportunity to promote their educationaltools and resources as well as assisting in the development of the Commission’sFinal Report to the President. A graduate of the University of San Francisco withhonorable mention, she majored in International Business with a minor inEconomics and French.

In the fall of 2005, she will be attending the Kennedy School of Governmentat Harvard University as a Thomas Pickering Foreign Affairs Graduate Fellow.

MARY BETH SHERIDAN Mary Beth Sheridan, a reporter with the Washington Post since 2001, covers local and national immigration news and trends. She is a for-mer foreign correspondent who has reported from two dozen countries, includ-ing Iraq, where she covered last year’s war as an embedded reporter with the U.S.Army’s 12th Aviation Brigade, a helicopter unit.

Before coming to the Post, she was a Los Angeles Times correspondent for five years. Based in Mexico City, Sheridan covered news on Mexican politics, eco-nomics, crime and culture as a reporter from 1996-2001. From 1994-1996,Sheridan was a correspondent for the Miami Herald based in Bogota, Colombia.Sheridan received her Bachelor’s degree in English from Holy Cross College andwas a Knight-Bagehot fellow in Business and Economic Journalism at ColumbiaUniversity in New York. She is a recipient of the Overseas Press Club award for her reporting from Latin America.




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