ZACATECAS, Mexico — The local press was ignoring her state congressional campaign here, so Maria Dolores Mendivil started asking people in her party why. The answer shocked her. To get any attention, she'd have to fork over $1 million.
That's the going rate for a convenio, or deal, that candidates in many Mexican states pay to local media during the campaign season to get favorable stories -- and avoid unflattering ones.
"I would say to reporters in the cafes, 'You interviewed me -- why don't you publish anything?' They told me that the National Action Party candidates were banned, obviously because we hadn't paid," Mendivil said.
She was trounced in the July 4 elections here in the central state of Zacatecas, as were most other candidates on her National Action Party, or PAN, slate.
Mendivil, 39, a political neophyte who immigrated illegally to Texas as a teenager and returned home with dreams of making a difference in her native state, ran head-on into a reality that more seasoned politicians -- and sports stars, singers, businesspeople and other aspiring luminaries -- were only too aware of: Press coverage in Mexico often carries a price tag.
"I came thinking the press was open and free, something cleaner," Mendivil said. "But in reality it is very dirty."
In many ways, Mexican news media have come a long way since the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, began loosening its grip on most facets of Mexican life more than a decade ago. State-owned television and radio stations have been privatized, and newspapers have modernized. Some news outlets that were once government mouthpieces are now more independent, especially those in the northern border states.
Newspapers such as Zeta of Tijuana wage fearless campaigns against corruption in high places. Proceso magazine and Reforma newspaper, which serve nationwide audiences, say they enforce a strict code of ethics. Freedom of expression has improved, analysts agree, since the 2000 election of President Vicente Fox, who ran on a platform of transparency and change.
But candidates and government officials from Chihuahua and Veracruz states, from Oaxaca and Nuevo Leon, say that many old corrupt practices, such as the convenio, remain in place. They say they have no choice but to enter into the deals with owners of local media or watch their careers or candidacies suffer from negative news coverage or neglect.
