Government will No Longer Use Radio and Television to 'Glorify' Criminals The News
go to original January 23, 2013

MEXICO CITY – The federal government is refining the national communications strategy for crime issues, sources in the government said Tuesday. The new strategy will focus on crime prevention and citizen participation, and not on media “shows” that glorify criminals, the officials said.

Media space will no longer be given to narcotraffickers; aliases, gangs, criminals’ enemies and splinter groups of members will no longer be mentioned. A criminal must be seen by the public for what he or she is: an anti-social, irrelevant person, they said.

The government will also refrain from using radio and television to announce detentions of suspected criminals because the practice violates article 63 the Federal Radio and Television Law, which states that neither should be used to “glorify violence or crime.”

The new administration said it hopes the strategy will avoid past problems between government agencies in the arrest of criminals and the media spectacles that followed.

The media and regulations secretary of the Interior Secretariat (Segob), Eduardo Sánchez, said he could not comment on previous administrations’ communication strategies. “My responsibility is to explain the methodology that we are going to use, (and how we) will inform citizens about security issues.”

He said the government would provide the public ample and timely information about prevention efforts as well as other security programs that were focused on medium and long-term crime prevention.

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