MEXICO CITY — On any given day in Mexico, nearly a third of the nation's 90 million people tune in to the evening news--and the majority of them don't believe a word they hear.
This paradox, found in independent polls and ratings surveys, speaks volumes about the incongruities in Mexico's national television industry, which has become one of the world's most powerful national media even as it has remained relatively unsophisticated.
It also helps explain why 42-year-old Sergio Sarmiento, one of the nation's foremost independent political and economic commentators, is about to abandon an 18-year career as editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Latin America edition in a bid to revolutionize Mexico's broadcast media. Beginning next week, Sarmiento will take over as vice president in charge of news at Television Azteca, the nation's second-largest network.
Sarmiento's goal: to build credibility into national television news. For Sarmiento, whose biting columns appear regularly in several major newspapers here, the timing is critical.
"The country is changing, and the rules are changing. It's time for television to change too," he said of an officially sanctioned reform process aimed at ending 66 years of authoritarian rule by a single political party and its supporters--among them Mexico's largest network, Televisa.
Outlining his goals, Sarmiento underscored the low ethical and professional standards at the two private networks, which together control nearly 300 local stations nationwide. After weeks of studying the operation, he said, "I'm going to try to establish a clear list of standards for ethics and objectivity.
"For example, if you give one point of view, you have to give the other point of view. They don't do that now. Then I'm going to get the anchor to stop editorializing on the air. I'm going to try to inject some professionalism."
The importance of the task is in the statistics. As many as 28 million Mexicans watch the evening news, and a 1993 survey by the independent Laboratory of Opinion Studies found that far more Mexicans own television sets than telephones. In fact, 47% of the random sample said they had no phone; less than 1% had no TV.
Raul Trejo Delarbre, author of a book on Mexican TV, noted that many viewers consider reporters biased. "Nevertheless, the majority of viewers continue watching those same reporters and anchors every night" because of "the absence of options."
