Change and continuity in Mexican Journalism The case of Morelia

Since the eighties, the political face of Mexico has been changing gradually. There has been a shift from the hegemony of the official Institutional Revolutionary Party to a more egalitarian distribution of power, in which the other two main parties (National Action Party and Democratic Revolution Party) have gained salience at national, state and local levels (Camp 1999, Eisenstadt 2003, Hiskey 2003, Hiskey and Bowler 2005, Elizondo 2006 and Escalante 2006). Nonetheless, it is still not clear the impact of this reconfiguration on news organizations: in their studies on Mexican journalism, Lawson (2002) and Hughes (2003 and 2006) perceived a general trend towards modernization. By taking certain news outlets located in the most important cities (mainly in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey), they considered that, indeed, Mexican media are undergoing progressive change. However, looking at other places – like Morelia - makes evident that the situation in the rest of the country is different.

Therefore, this research will argue that, despite the arrival of diverse political parties to the national, state and local administrations, the relationship between reporters and high rank political authorities remains the same. That is, the exchange of favours – economic most of the times – still determines the way news organizations and politicians interact. In short, rather than change, continuity is the rule of the journalistic practice, at least in the provinces of Mexico. For that reason, this study proposes an approach to the problem at two levels: macro and micro. The former is related to the media environment (the way news outlets are organised and operate) and the latter regards the interaction between reporters and their sources. The central argument is that the specific conditions of the media context shape the journalist-politician relationship. In sum, the discussion on change versus continuity of the Mexican journalism requires analysing the interaction between the macro and micro levels.