Bought and paid for

The Mexican presidential election is in three weeks and I am shocked, shocked that there are allegations that one of the candidates paid for positive and extensive media coverage. 

from The Guardian

US diplomats raised concerns that the frontrunner in Mexico's presidential election, Enrique Peña Nieto, was paying for favourable TV coverage as far back as 2009, according to state department cables released by WikiLeaks.

Allegations that coverage by the country's main television network was biased in favour of Peña Nieto have triggered a wave of student demonstrations in the runup to the election on 1 July. The claims are supported by documents seen by the Guardian, which also implicate other politicians in buying news and entertainment coverage.

One cable, written shortly after US embassy officials were taken on a tour of Mexico State when Peña Nieto was governor, says: "It is widely accepted, for example, that the television monopoly Televisa backs the governor and provides him with an extraordinary amount of airtime and other kinds of coverage." The document, which dates from September 2009, was titled: "A look at Mexico State, Potemkin village style".

Another cable from the start of the same year emphasises the importance the then governor Peña Nieto was giving to securing convincing electoral victories for the Institutional Revolutionary party in his state in the upcoming midterm congressional elections that summer.

Maybe this explains why he was so far ahead in the polls.  Now, if they were just up front about it, kinda like Fox and the GOP, I am sure people would be fine with it.  Fair and balanced and bought and paid for works just fine, especially with unlimited corporate money.  C'mon, Mexico, you can do better.

Meanwhile, maybe some people are waking up.

from the LAHT

Thousands of people took part in protests in cities across Mexico over the weekend under the banner of the “Yo soy 132” student movement, rejecting the candidacy of presidential frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Sunday’s protests took place hours before Mexico’s four presidential candidates participated in the last debate before the July 1 election.

Some 40,000 people, mainly young people, took to the streets of Mexico City, marching from the Zocalo, the capital’s main plaza, to the Angel of Independence monument in what organizers labeled the “Second National anti-Peña Nieto March.”

 C'mon, El Norte, you can do better.