Back to Normal, Back to Mexico!
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- May 8, 2009
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I have been struggling a bit with what I wanted to say about media coverage of Mexico this year. I have never been on the receiving end of misleading media coverage and generally hold journalists in high regard. Sometimes I even find that U.S. coverage of political issues in Mexico is more revealing than Mexican coverage and less influenced by local bias. But unfortunately all of us in Mexico have been on the business end of the media muzzle. I now see how a feeding frenzy occurs and plays out now with the US/Mexico border security and the flu issue. For those who are tired of reviewing these issues, forgive me. It is the last time I will bring it up and we will go on to the Joys of Mexican Cuisine!
First Stage is Feeding Frenzy. As soon as a major media outlet picks up on a salacious story, the others run to jump in before facts are actually present to just get the story out. Orson Welles would be proud. I call this the “War of the Worlds” stage. “Don’t wait for the facts, just pick up and run, man, run!!! The invasion is coming!” Do you remember the initial estimates of people who were infected and actually died? Even as of last week the media was still reporting the toll to be 150 last week and now it is 40.
Second Stage is Broad Stokes and Lack of Context. The media originally picked apart the State Department Advisory about travel to Mexico to apply it in broad strokes to all of Mexico. I am sorry, but where I live there are no bullets flying (a lot of fireworks, though!) and no flu!!! Tepoztlan is one of the safest places in the world. This village of 23,000 inhabitants mostly comprised of subsistence farmers tucked into the mountains is one of the most relaxed places to live because everybody knows everybody else. However, because the media reports about the join US/Mexico border were so misleadingly applied to all of Mexico, my husband fielded calls for weeks about the “security” issue in Tepoztlan. It took guests about 15 minutes upon arrival to understand they had been duped. They went on to enjoy the rest of their stay without a care in the world. I can’t blame them. I see what they read!
To not give your public context, can color a reaction. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say, “Ohhh, I read the news reports. This year I decided that I am not going to the convention in Oklahoma City because I just read reports of murders in New York.” What??? Of course we all know that is ridiculous but how many people who live outside of Mexico know how Mexico is geographically laid out. Journalists who write these broad pieces on border security must know this. We are located 15 hours drive from the Mexico/US border.
With the flu issue, no context was ever given in the initial reports — specifically that 30,000 Americans die every year from just the plain old run-of-the-mill flu! I understand that this is a new strain and everyone needs to be vigilant, but people need to have data, background and context to understand something like this. The numbers must be digested in the context of one of the world’s most populous cities. Greater Mexico City has a population 3 times that of New York City and yet the Mexican authorities seem to have been successful in stopping the transmission of this flu in just a couple of weeks. Where are the stories about a bottom line which is the success in slowing and controlling the transmission under almost impossible circumstances? Kids are going back to school next Monday and life has already returned to normal.
Third Stage – No Accountability, No Do-Overs, Send it to Page 3. What happens when a story came out without all of the information present? What happens when new information surfaces that contradicts earlier information? Will that new information get the same coverage? Of course not. According to the current information about the flu, less people were affected and fewer people died because the media ran with numbers about all flu cases including the good old run-of-the-mill. Test kits weren’t distributed to Mexico until very late. Samples had to be sent to the US and Canada with a 3 day or longer turn around for results. It just isn’t sexy to say, “Hey . . . ahhh . . . guest what, that thing I said earlier. I was wrong.”