Mexico's Media Monopoly vs. The People Nathaniel Parish Flannery - Fortune Magazine
go to original September 14, 2012

Mexico's President-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, and wife: Televisa superstars (Saul Lopez/Cuartoscuro)

On July 7, nearly 100,000 people forced their way down Reforma, one of Mexico City's main avenues, gathering in front of the Angel of Independence, a 150-foot-tall monumentin a plaza in the city center. "People, Listen! This is your fight!" they chanted. "Governing a country is not [the same as] making a telenovela," one of the protest posters announced.

Mexico's election is over, but in the weeks following the July 1 ballot count, demonstrators have taken to the streets. They are angry about the victory of Enrique Peña Nieto, a polarizing but telegenic candidate who ran a campaign based on simple slogans such as "You'll Earn More!"

As the demonstration passed by Museo de Bellas Artes, an iconic museum in downtown Mexico City, Carolina Reyes, a recent college graduate, explained "I think there was fraud in the promotion [of Peña Nieto] in the media." She had painted the front of a model TV screen to show a modified version of the Televisa logo, re-done in the red, white, and green colors of Peña Nieto's party, a political machine with a long and checkered history in Mexico.

A plastic tyrannosaurus rex toy poked its head out through a rip in the center of the logo, a warning about the return of old, corrupt, political "dinosaurs" to power. "Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" the crowd around Carolina chanted, as onlookers stopped to use their cell phones to snap photos as she held her TV prop over her head.

The protesters, the majority of whom supported Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor (AMLO), a leftist candidate, are frustrated with the influence of Televisa (TV), Mexico's most important media company, in their country's political discourse. They don't want to see Televisa write the script for their country's elections.

Read more at Fortune Magazine

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!