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On the Razor’s Edge
By Alba Leal García

Alejandro Junco de la Vega

In 1974, when Luis Echeverría was president of Mexico, the newspaper El Norte of Monterrey openly condemned the expropriation of land in Sonora state decreed by the federal government. This defiance brought an immediate from the president, who ordered the suspension of the sale of newsprint to the newspaper, founded in 1938. Those were difficult days for the newspaper, which ran the risk of not appearing the next day because of the lack of newsprint, since supply was controlled by the state-run PIPSA. However, publisher Alejandro Junco de la Vega decided to defend freedom of expression at any cost.

Twenty years later in Mexico City Junco again raised the flag of freedom of expression to support his right to sell the newspaper Reforma in the streets of the capital.

The conflict with the Union of Newspaper Vendors became public Nov. 2, 1994 when Reforma was about to celebrate its first anniversary. From then on, there was a national polemic that involved federal congressmen and the attorney general of the republic. What started as a local problem soon spread to Acapulco and Puebla and later to Saltillo and Monterrey, neighboring cities where the local vendors unions decided to refuse to sell a sister newspaper, Palabra, as well as El Norte.

Besides seeking legal recourse, Junco dared to go into the street to personally sell his newspaper. So did other executives of the newspaper, as well as reporters, contributors, some congressmen and even artists and intellectuals who made his cause theirs. After a month, Reforma was able to reach its clients through its own distribution system 365 days of the year with submitting to the demands of the Union of Newspaper Vendors, a monopolistic organization that still refuses to sell the morning newspaper.

Today, what most worries Junco is drug trafficking and the pressure the traffickers can exert on the news media through violence and bribery. There have been isolated signs of this, such as the attack against David Vicenteño, a reporter for El Norte and Reforma. He was kidnapped Aug. 25, 1997, beaten and threatened so that he would cease his investigation into the disappearance of Jorge Francisco Palacios Hernández, a police agent in the capital who was presumably in the pay of drug dealer Amada Carrillo, "The Lord of the "Skies."

On Sept 5, 1997, Daniel Lizárraga, also a reporter for El Norte and Reforma, was beaten in an early morning attack after he had interviewed members of the attorney general’s office involved in shipping cocaine from Tapachula in the state of Chiapas to Mexico City. His captors held him for three hours, beating him in an attempt to make him reveal the results of his investigations.

These aggressions and others suffered by journalists from other media remain unresolved, despite the fact that President Ernesto Zedillo promised that his government would investigate these and other cases to protect the press’s freedom of expression.

These experiences have marked the trajectory of Junco de la Vega, at 50 the publisher and president of four newspapers: El Norte in Monterrey, Reforma in Mexico City, Palabra in Saltillo and Mural in Guadalajara.

Pulso: Since you started in journalism, what changes have you noted in freedom of expression in Mexico?

Alejandro Junco de la Vega: Among the changes, the biggest has been in the freedom to buy newsprint. It’s a fundamental change that took place in the early 90s. This is what prompted us to launch Reforma. For the previous six decades, we had to buy newsprint from a state company, something that never stopped having a chilling effect. Those who wrote the headlines knew that they were subject to a newsprint quota and that those who allotted the newsprint were reading the headlines. That conditioned journalism in our country for many years. Fortunately, that’s now over.

Curiously there are still many cultural attitudes that limit the exercise of press freedom. My attention is drawn, for example, to the way the American press handles major stories like Clinton-Lewinsky, while in our country, when a writer dares to tell a joke about President Zedillo, interest groups – many of them from the private sector – join together to see how to penalize a news media that dared to cross the threshold of humorously criticizing a president. That culture of an untouchable president has existed for many decades in our country and surely will change. I hope that’s so because criticism, irony, humor and sarcasm are valid communication tools and I don’t believe a president should be exempt from this type of critique.

P.: Do you feel that the reaction to humorous attacks has lessened?

A.J.V.: Yes, but I’m surprised at the slowness. Culturally we accept accelerated change in the opening of new frontiers, a NAFTA agreement to eliminates customs duties. We want to accept or adopt international standards on many fronts, but in the world of journalism and journalistic criticism we have many reservations.

P.: In the case of newspapers, have they felt any type of repression?

A.J.V.: Certainly to a lesser degree than we had been accustomed to. It doesn’t stop being worrisome when a newspaper fulfills its responsibility, such as the publication of a letter sent to the assassinated presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio by his campaign chief, who is now the president (Ernesto Zedillo). The president accuses us of lacking ethics and of invading his privacy. He started a process of converting our media into a bad dog. This criticism of Reforma, if held to international standards, would be totally absurd. Imagine if they had sent a letter to President John Kennedy warning him of the risks he was taking and that the letter was not published. It would not be understood.

P.: Is this reaction of the government limited to reproaches?

A.J.V.: Yes. Aside from these reproaches, we’ve been able to operate without any problem.

P.: When you launched Reforma in Mexico City, you faced a type of journalism unknown in Monterrey. What were the challenges that you had to overcome, above all in ethics and handling the news?

A.J.V.: From the start, I’d say the problem was to offer a new model to get away from existing practices. There was polarity in the market in the capital: journalists were either missionaries or mercenaries. The missionary journalist works in a media in order to have influence on some ideology, philosophy or political party. As long as they’re able to carry on their personal agenda, their ideology, their way of thinking, many of them are not ready to adopt professional standards. At the other extreme is the mercenary journalist who is driven by economic subjects. From that interest comes corruption. Our paradigm places us between these two opposing poles. We’re very clear that the reader pays us to be good professionals and not to put our personal interests before those of our client, the reader. We work hard to establish and maintain this model We want to be facilitators in the informational process.

P.: Do you feel that some way you have forced changes in the way journalism is done in Mexico City?

A.J.V.: I’d say there have been some visible changes, although others are more opaque. One which in my judgment is very important and which is also a parting of the waters in the history of the country’s journalism is that, with our model of journalism, we’ve been able to affect not only the journalism part but also the industrial part. I’m referring to the distribution system that in Mexico City had been a monopoly over many decades. We managed, through a position of independence and liberty, to establish our own system of distribution based on a premise that is fundamental to us: that the exercise of press freedom includes the unimpeded circulation of our publications. The obstacles that the Union of Newspaper Vendors wanted to mount were an attack on freedom of the press. Having been the driving force behind this change is something that in the long run will be fundamental in the development of the written press in our country.

P.: You no longer have problems selling the newspaper?

A.J.V.: We have no problems of violence, but of discrimination because the newsstands that are along the public thoroughfares offer for sale all of the newspapers except Reforma. The Union of Newspaper Vendors still discriminates against Reforma. However, we can sell the newspaper ourselves, and we do so.

P.: Did you experience something similar in Guadalajara?

A.J.V.: Guadalajara is a different case. There we saw that the Union of Newspaper Vendors has many independent groups among its members and we’ve been able to work with the majority of them. This has led to some curious incidents, such as attacks on our distributors whose motorcycles they’ve stolen as well as the newspapers they were going to distribute. What draws our attention is the fact they took the newspapers.

P.: What changes have been there as far as the attitude of the private sector towards Reforma and Mural?

A.J.V.: We think that a typical way of working in Mexico City consists in sources, in an organized way, giving news simultaneously to journalists working in pools. For us, the best news comes informally as a result of dedicated work by journalists making their own efforts. I believe that the pool journalism that dominated the Mexican market for so long is increasingly less important.

P.: When Carlos Salinas de Gortari was president he signed a declaration of freedom of expression. At that time you were president of the Inter American Press Association. I remember that during his six-year presidency there were more journalists killed. Do you really see some change in the opening of the government as far as management of the news is concerned?

A.J.V.: The topic of violence and journalism in our country is very complex because of the growing drug problem that has made this subject seldom clear, never easy to explain and always impossible to prove. Added to this problem are the multiple jobs held by many of the assassinated journalists. For this reason it has been difficult to determine if the assassination was because of their journalism or some problem related to one of their other jobs. There have been some assassinations that were initially feared to have been for journalistic reasons but upon analysis were found to have been because of unpaid debts.

P.: During the Salinas de Gortari administration there were also changes in the news media in the interior because of pressure from the government.

A.J.V.: Yes, that was a problem during the regime of president Salinas he had great influence over job appointments in the news media. I believe this is decreasing, but there’s no doubt that many injustices were committed by government meddling.

P.: Is it easier to exercise that pressure in electronic media than in the written press?

A.J.V.: There’s a fundamental structural difference between the written press and media that require a federal concession like radio and television. Fortunately we in the written press don’t need any concession in order to operate, nor do we have concessions that come up for renewal. The electronic media have, first, the problem of getting a concession and, second, getting a renewal. This makes electronic journalism much for cautious than the written press.

P.: What do you consider to be the major problems in present day journalism?

A.J.V.: I’d say that superficiality is one of them. Often we talk of the symptoms of the disease and not about the disease itself. This brings a big risk: that newspapers will become irrelevant. We have the challenge of not only understanding the symptoms of the problem but the problem itself. Added to that is the fact the government is expert in distracting us with many topics that look interesting but are of little real importance. Then the journalist has to determine what is relevant and what is only smoke. Another basic topic is the drug problem because there are groups linked to the drug trade who see the press as the enemy. Now we’re on the razor’s edge. If we allow it, drug interests will penetrate the country’s news process.

P.: When did you start to note the problem of drug trafficking-news-corruption?

A.J.V.: I think it’s a problem that has increased in the last 10 years.

P.: What can you do to prevent this contamination of the news?

A.J.V.: Make it clear that we are not collaborating nor becoming associates of these groups. We oppose drug trafficking on principle and we would never accept the benefits. The rules are clear.

P.: How are your relations with the Inter American Press Association? Do you still attend the meetings?

A.J.V.: I really haven’t stopped going to the meetings. I’m disappointed with the IAPA because internal politics have become more important than the fight for freedom of expression. We remain members but we’re not actively participating.

P.: As publisher, what do you consider have been the most difficult moments that you’ve had to face to defend freedom of the press of El Norte, Reforma, Palabra and Mural?

A.J.V.: There have been many throughout our history. In September of 1974, during the presidency of Luis Echeverría, we were at the point of ceasing publication because the government had withdrawn our newsprint quota. This was a difficult moment in which we had to decide whether to change our editorial policy or reduce the consumption of newsprint to such a point where it would hurt our sale of advertising, the sale of copies and the size of the paper. We took the decision to not change our editorial policy and hope that political change in the country would solve differences we had with President Luis Echeverría. It was a difference over his policy of land expropriation during his presidency. In 1981, when President López Portillo nationalized the banks, we had difficult times of physical violence against our journalists. In 1994, the problem was with the Union of Newspaper Vendors. They have been decisive moments that fortunately we’ve been able to overcome.

P.: Do you think there are now more newspapers committed to the ethical management of news than when you started?

A.J.V.: I think so. I’m pleased when some colleagues tell me openly that they have copied ideas, concepts and practices from our journalistic model and use our strategies. The example is El Imparcial of Hermosillo, which launched an educational program like ours. There are other examples of good journalism, like A.M. of Leon, where there’s a professional spirit similar to the one we have.

P.: Have you had influence in Mexico City?

A.J.V.: I don’t see where we’ve had the recognition in Mexico City, but changes have a long gestation period, and the newspaper Reforma has only been in the market a few years. We believe we’ll have an impact in the long run.

P.: Do you have anything to add?

A.J.V.: I’d say that the role of the press is going to be central to the democratization of the country. As a society we need to find common elements to unite us so we will have a better chance of success in the democratization process. And what better than this communality come about through the world of news. Perhaps we have differences in solving problems, but let’s be clear about what is the problem. And this is achieved through good journalism.

(Alba Leal García is a freelance journalist and correspondent for the Mexican business magazine Expansión).

(Posted in Spanish Feb. 1999)