The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the threats faced by those who practice journalism and the media themselves “creating an extinction event” in some cases, warns the “World Report 2021/2022: Global trends in freedom of expression and the development of the media.
The report -promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)- points out that, in the last five years, the advertising income of newspapers has been reduced to half, because Facebook (now called Meta) and Google receive more than 50 percent of digital ad spend worldwide.
The risk that this situation implies is that quality journalistic content -based on facts- is reduced by the algorithms used by digital platforms, and means a “massive decrease in the supply of news as an essential service for decision-making and for hold power accountable”.
During the presentation of the report -on May 25-, Audrey Azoulay, director general of UNESCO, expressed that “the pandemic has shown us even more the value of the work of journalists, and the dangers they face every day to send us reliable information in very difficult situations”. In turn, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in Economics 2001, warned: “just at the time we need independent and credible journalism – a free press – the business model is being undermined.”
In this alarming context, the public media acquire greater relevance, because -by being financed with public resources- they must contribute to the development of knowledge, broaden the vision of society, promote access to public life and contribute elements to understand what that happens in the world and to those around us, without the intervention of commercial interests.
In the case of the State of Mexico, Radio and Television Mexiquense have been operating since the 1980s and thanks to the reforms to the telecommunications and broadcasting framework of 2014, they expanded their offer to the digital spectrum, becoming the Mexiquense System of Public Media; which is obliged to operate with editorial independence, guarantee citizen participation and express the ideological, ethnic and cultural diversities in the entity.
Last June 16 The Citizen Council of the Mexican Public Media System was renewed, which will be co-responsible for strengthening the system itself in the face of the political situation due to the renewal of the state Executive Power in 2023 and for convincing the new government of the strategic role that Public Communication plays in the society. Great challenge for Mexican communication.
PERCEPTION
Attention to Mariela Gutiérrez Escalante, municipal president of Tecámac. She already sounds like a contender for governor for Morena.
Professor-researcher at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the UAEMéx.
Twitter: @RJoyaC
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#Context | Let’s strengthen the public media