Intersections

Mexico signs anti-piracy treaty, setting up battle with activists

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico this week quietly signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, a controversial multinational treaty that sponsors say protects intellectual property but opponents call an assault on privacy and freedom of expression.

Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico signed the agreement Wednesday on behalf of the Mexican government in Japan.  The signing immediately set off condemnation among Internet activists in Mexico, who called the government's move a strategic ruse in an election year.

Mexico's Senate must ratify the treaty, but the chamber rejected ACTA in 2010.

By signing it while Congress is not in session -- and just days after the presidential election -- the administration of President Felipe Calderon is in effect forcing the issue to the front of the agenda once the new Congress convenes in September and before Calderon's term expires. The president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, assumes office for a six-year term in December. Peña Nieto has so far not indicated a position on the treaty.

ACTA has been negotiated and debated by world governments since it first emerged in 2008. The agreement would help improve international efforts to prosecute content and intellectual-property piracy, including digital and Internet platforms, but also covering trademarks, brands and pirated pharmaceuticals.

Opponents say governments could abuse ACTA and target private users  with criminal charges for downloading copyrighted material, for example, or force Internet service providers to monitor the  online activity of users and turn data over to authorities.

The United States is a key signatory as of October 2011 with Australia, Canada, Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan. Last week, the European Parliament rejected ACTA in a crucial vote, a setback for the treaty. ACTA is "too vague, open to misinterpretation, and could therefore jeopardize citizens' liberties," the parliament said in a statement.

Mexico's signing, although contingent on ratification by the new Senate, revives momentum for ACTA supporters.

Rodrigo Roque Diaz, director of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, or IMPI, said in an interview that the government would ask Congress to develop legislation in the fall that would "jointly" protect Internet users concerned about privacy.

"The idea is not to criminalize the independent, private user of the Internet;  the idea is to sanction those who are violating author rights on a commercial scale," Roque Diaz told The Times.

Piracy in Mexico, which is commonly associated with outdoor markets where illegally produced DVDs and CDs are sold, "generates great economic and tax losses" estimated at 2.7 million pesos (about $200,000) an hour, he said. 

Activists in Mexico promised this week to vigorously oppose ratification of ACTA once the Senate convenes. They've started a Twitter campaign to request that each senator-elect stake out a position now. 

So far, leftist legislators are assumed to oppose ACTA, while the ruling conservative party members are assumed to support it. Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party will hold the most seats in the new Senate, but the party's position on ACTA is yet unclear.

Antonio Martinez, a free-speech advocate and one of the forefront voices against the treaty during the Senate's working-group debates on the issue in 2009 and 2010, said the government's signing of ACTA is "trickery."

"It's a very bad signal from the government to the outgoing Senate and to civil society;  it's disdainful of all the work done in the legislature," Martinez said Friday. ACTA "is dangerous for what it doesn't say. The IMPI is wrong, and it's almost as though they haven't even read the treaty," he said.

* Photo: A vendor shows pirated DVDs on a sidewalk in central Mexico City in 2006. Credit: Sarah Meghan Lee / For The Times

To be a journalist in Mexico

 

Watch the video above, I implore you. Support, ponder, and bear witness. A democracy in Mexico cannot survive without the women and men you see here.

Mexicans protesting election results crash televised wedding

** Originally published at World Now:

They were images that could not have been scripted with any more dramatic irony. Come to think it, it looked quite a bit like a network-produced telenovela. Just gone painfully wrong.

During the latest wave of demonstrations against the results of the July 1 elections in Mexico, protesters in Mexico City on Saturday converged on a colonial church downtown and began chanting and shouting from the outside while an actor's wedding took place inside.

The wedding of comedian Eugenio Derbez and actress and singer Alessandra Rosaldo was being aired live on the Canal de las Estrellas, the entertainment channel belonging the dominant media conglomerate Televisa. Televised weddings are a customary practice for a channel that tends to employ Televisa personalities' real lives as fodder for programming.

Protesters who had gathered by the tens of thousands in central Mexico City apparently got word of the televised event and dozens marched to the church from the Zocalo main square, reports said.

"Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" the protesters shouted.

The chanting was audible over the Televisa live feed, making for excruciating footage as the bride and groom attempted to stick to their vows while the ruckus was heard loudly and clearly. See unofficial video here and a longer clip here.

There were no reports of arrests or injuries. But the incident stood out as an uncontrollable and spontaneous hijacking of air time in a tense period for Mexico's political and media establishment. Demonstrations have continued in several cities in rejection of apparent president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Activists have rejected the election results due in part to widespread reports of vote-buying by the PRI. They are also targeting Televisa, which controls nearly all of Mexico's television channels in a duopoly formed with second network TV Azteca, and which they accuse of giving favorable coverage to Peña Nieto and the PRI for years.

Derbez, known for his role on the slapstick program "La Familia Peluche," is presumably enjoying his honeymoon and has not made public comments since the wedding. But on his Twitter account, the actor retweeted a message from a supporter claiming Derbez did not support Peña Nieto in the election and the demonstrators were "sheep."

Televisa's breezy newscast report on the Derbez-Rosaldo wedding does make a mention of the protesters, perhaps in acknowledgment that their shouting could not be ignored or edited out. 

Separately, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a man identified as a member of the PRI was arrested and jailed after he pointed a pistol at election protesters from a restaurant balcony in the capital city of Xalapa during Saturday demonstrations.

Juan Pablo Franzoni Martinez, a PRI activist and restaurant investor, was detained and dragged away by police as his pants were coming down, creating embarrassing images that were then promptly ridiculed on Twitter. Authorities in Veracruz said Franzoni was booked on charges of threatening the protesters and for illegally carrying a firearm.

There's plenty of video circulating of that incident, too.

Election recount begins at more than half of Mexico polls

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico is recounting votes cast at more than half its polling places during Sunday's presidential election, the electoral body said Wednesday, as reports of vote-buying marred the apparent win of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Ballots from more than 54% of polling places will be recounted within 72 hours, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) said. The figure marks a huge increase over the 9% of ballots that were recounted in the long and contentious aftermath of the disputed 2006 election.

The recount began early Wednesday as part of the IFE's normal procedure of validating results gathered from the institute's 300 electoral districts. By law, ballots are recounted when a polling place shows irregularities, such as more votes cast than there are registered voters, a complete sweep by a single candidate or party, or a 1-percentage-point or smaller margin between first and second place.

Separately, the PRI is facing growing accusations that campaigns gave potential voters supermarket debit cards in exchange for their votes, among other allegations.

"They gave us the cards in the name of the PRI and Rep. Hector Pedroza [a PRI congressional candidate], and they said they were counting on our vote," a 20-year-old university student told the Associated Press at a Soriana supermarket in eastern Mexico City.

The PRI and Soriana chain said in statements that they had no such agreement.

Leftist coalition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has yet to concede defeat after the initial "fast count" that began Sunday night had him about 6 points behind presumed winner Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI.

The recount is not expected to significantly alter the preliminary results. Such a prospect places pressure on Mexico's progressive factions to decide whether they will follow Lopez Obrador on another possible wave of protests and mobilizations like those that shut down the center of Mexico City for weeks after the 2006 vote.

In that race, the final official tally had Lopez Obrador lose the election to current conservative President Felipe Calderon by less than half a percentage point. The leftist leader never accepted those results.

As in 2006, the Lopez Obrador campaign is claiming widespread fraud in the 2012 vote. He reiterated his call for a vote-by-vote recount at every polling place. His campaign also said it would send scores of complaints of vote-tampering and vote-buying to Mexico's electoral tribunal.

"What we are demanding is that the electoral authorities ... assume their responsibility," Lopez Obrador said.

Meanwhile, the emergent national student movement known as #YoSoy132 held an all-day assembly at the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to determine how it would proceed after the apparent Peña Nieto victory.

Due in large part to huge demonstrations led by #YoSoy132 movement, the results of the  election have cast a harsh light on the relationship between the PRI; Peña Nieto; and the two leading media networks in Mexico, which control 95% of the airwaves.

Throughout the campaign, most polls showed Peña Nieto with a lead of 12 to 18 points over Lopez Obrador, but the initial results of the actual vote showed the spread to be half that.

The Times noted this week that the PRI's win is weaker than initially expected. And for Calderon's ruling National Action Party, or PAN, the 2012 results are an "unmitigated wreck," as a former party president put it. 

* Photo: An official with the Federal Electoral Institute in Mexico City checks one of the ballots cast in Sunday's national election. Credit: Alex Cruz / European Pressphoto Agency

Meet Mexico's new youth movement: #YoSoy132

** Originally published at Vice.com:

We’re now less than two weeks away from Mexico’s presidential election, and at this point, few people would have expected that the otherwise unsurprising democratic process of voting would be accompanied by scenes of rabble-rousing students chanting and singing along with mariachi bands outside the studios of Mexico’s leading television network.

These scenes, part of a nascent student movement known as #YoSoy132, are now becoming regular features on the nightly news in Mexico. Imagine that, young people protesting media bias and media manipulation by the thousands in a country with little precedent for such collective grievances against corporate big media.

A lot of people here are pretty excited with this development.

It all started on May 11, when candidate Enrique Peña Nieto visited the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City for what was supposed to be a friendly meet-and-greet with the student and academic community. Instead, over the course of his visit, Peña Nieto suffered a humiliating and disastrous few hours of abuse from what looked like a spontaneous student protest. It got messy.

Peña Nieto came for a normal campaign stop, to deliver a speech and answer questions before an auditorium. The thing was going nominally well until students who had managed to slip in protest signs past a security check could no longer contain themselves. According to video, photos, and accounts of the event, the shouting started after one lone guy with a poofy haircut and a lot of attitude stood up silently holding a hand-drawn sign that read simply, TE ODIO. “I hate you.”

The shouting and chanting grew. Peña Nieto sought an escape. More protesters were waiting for him outside.

The candidate with the movie-star looks and soap-opera star wife was chased through the halls and courtyards of “the Ibero” by choruses of “Murderer!” and “Coward!” as students protested his handling of a 2006 dispute with campesinos in the town of San Salvador Atenco during his term as a state governor. The shouting and chasing grew overwhelming. Peña Nieto hid briefly in a restroom with his team, trying to find a good way out. Video of the moment shows Peña’s eyes wide and hollow, his forehead tense, lips curled up with fear.

By the time it was all over, Peña Nieto was literally run off the Ibero campus. As he ducked into a dark SUV, one reporter managed to ask him what he thought of the protests against him. “It’s not genuine,” he responded with a meager smile, and took off. And with that, the 2012 Mexican presidential race—the race that Peña Nieto was supposed to win without breaking a sweat—took a major shift.

The Ibero incident put the Peña Nieto campaign in damage-control mode. The next day, suggestions that the demonstration was staged by outsiders was repeated by his campaign chief, a few sympathetic Ibero faculty, and just about every provincial and vaguely corrupt newspaper that implicitly supports Peña Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

This turned out to be an enormously foolish move. The students responded by uploading a video of 131 of them staring into their MacBook video cameras and repeating their names and their student ID numbers while flashing their Ibero ID cards. The PRI has spent many millions of dollars on its campaign to win Mexico’s presidency, but what followed was a media coup that no amount of cash or army of consultants could have stopped. Among Mexico’s active Twitter-verse, the hashtag soon appeared: #YoSoy132. “I am 132.”

It’s worth noting that this kind of brouhaha was very unexpected for Ibero. It is one of the swankiest schools in the country, the kind of place where a slick, media-savvy politician like Peña Nieto should normally be made to be feel right at home. Hell, the Ibero produces Peña Nietos. I know, because a lot of my friends are recent graduates. Even they were surprised by what happened on May 11, but not entirely. Any decent school always has room for progressive thought and action, and while the Ibero probably costs more per year than what millions of Mexicans make in an adult life, there was an undercurrent of “enough is enough” in the anti-Peña protest that seemed blind to class or social boundaries. By the following weekend, a classic grassroots social-media movement had taken off.

#YoSoy132 demonstrations broke first in Mexico City. Tens of thousands streamed through the central corridor and gathered at the Angel of Independence monument to make it known that they, too, were opposed to the PRI regaining power.

The party ruled the country for much of the 20th Century until 2000 with a potent mix of strategies that ultimately boils down to power-by-any-means necessary. It has a widely documented history of vote-buying, fraud, collusion with drug traffickers, censorship, intimidation, election-stealing, and often fatal repression against dissidents—from the assassination of top party figures such as Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994 to the outright massacres of student protesters in 1968 and 1971. Peña Nieto says the PRI under his candidacy is a new party, and that his campaign should not be faulted for the party’s “errors” of the past.

In 2012, as the July 1 election day nears and the PRI remains ahead in the polls, the students aren’t having it.

#YoSoy132 demonstrations were also held in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana, Durango, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala, Aguascalientes, Veracruz, and many other cities in Mexico. Smaller protests in show of support of #YoSoy132 have also been reported among the wide Mexican diaspora in places like Chicago, Barcelona, Madrid, San Francisco, and before the White House in Washington, DC. Students at more than 35 universities and colleges across Mexico have joined the movement. What’s significant is that they’re forming a private- and public-university horizontal coalition that hasn’t been seen in Mexico with such force since the late 1960s. As thousands join their demonstrations, there’s a sense of collective dissent against the return of the so-called “dinosaurs” of the PRI, and collective disgust at the arguably biased role that the major media companies are playing in the process.

Now, this is not the Mexican Spring. It’s not a movement meant to topple the government. It’s actually stated a sort of incongruent political position: Against a presidential candidate but not in support of any other. For all we know, Peña Nieto has already won the 2012 election in Mexico. He’s about 15 points up; heart-on-his-sleeve leftie Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and incumbent party conservative Josefina Vazquez Mota, who’s all about keeping military on the streets against drug cartels, are so far splitting the anti-PRI vote.

Even if Lopez Obrador or Vazquez Mota pull off a wild upset in the end, #YoSoy132 will seek to keep the movement up, asking for media reform against the duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca, which evidently represent an extension of the greater status quo in Mexico—all neatly symbolized by Peña and the PRI. Therefore, the natural questions are: Can it? Will it? Could it?

* Photo: Three high school friends at the Televisa studios protest on June 11, 2012, by Trevor Snapp. For more photos by Trevor Snapp on #YoSoy132, go here.

Crowds in Mexico protest leading presidential candidate

** Originally published at World Now:

Tens of thousands of protesters streamed through Mexico's capital and rallied at the Angel of Independence monument Sunday in another large demonstration against the country's mainstream media and the former ruling political party.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose rule over Mexico for much of the 20th century was marked by corruption and authoritarianism, is poised to return to power in the July 1 presidential election.

"All the people have just had it up to here that the government manipulates us," said Misael Nava, 28, a native of the state of former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto of PRI, the leading candidate.

Nava stood among crowds that rallied for up to eight hours against Peña Nieto.

The student-led # YoSoy132 movement, or I Am 132, organized concurrent protests in at least 17 other cities in Mexico as the four presidential candidates prepared to meet for their last official debate Sunday night in Guadalajara. In the race, Peña Nieto is leading by double digits.

Protesters claim the PRI is favored by the media duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca, which they suspect organized a propaganda campaign against the leftist candidate in the 2006 election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The former Mexico City mayor is running again and moving into second place behind Peña Nieto after demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began one month ago.

Sunday's demonstrations spread to other sites in the city, including the Televisa studios near downtown. Students in the I Am 132 movement, roused by a contentious appearance by Peña Nieto at a private university, said they were also marking the anniversary of a 1971 student massacre blamed on the then-ruling PRI government.

"I have a son of 11 and a daughter of 9, and I'm here to show them to not be indifferent to what happens in their country," said Regina Soto, who held up home-made signs with her two children.

"They don't want the PRI to win. We want clean elections where we decide who gets to govern us," she said.

Most demonstrators stood by an early pledge in the movement to remain nonpartisan, but the demonstrations have led to slight gains for Lopez Obrador in some polls. The other main candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, has dipped to third.

Protesters said they would work to keep the movement past the July 1 election, regardless of who wins.

* Photo: A view of the Paseo de Reforma avenue in central Mexico CIty during Sunday's large demonstration against the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the major news media in Mexico.

On voting for the first time for president in Mexico

From Latino USA:

Writer Daniel Hernandez was already disappointed in US politics when he moved to his parents’ home country of Mexico almost five years ago. Now that he is registered to vote in Mexico for the first time he has found old problems in the political system of his new home.

Go here for the audio file and program of my radio essay for Latino USA with Maria Hinojosa on National Public Radio. Here's Latino USA's news report on the #YoSoy132 movement, with guest journalist Luisa Ortiz Perez. Good stuff.

* Previously, "Mexico students plan protests as second presidential debate nears."

Mexico students plan protests as second presidential debate nears

** Originally published at World Now:

It's looking more and more like a two-way race in Mexico's July 1 presidential election. That is, a contest between Mexico's former ruling party and everyone opposing its return.

Four candidates gather Sunday night in Guadalajara for the second and last officially scheduled debate of the campaign. The session offers another chance for one of the trailing contenders to alter the shape of the race.

Polls show the once-reigning Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, comfortably in the lead with its fresh-faced candidate, former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto. Student demonstrations are planned nationwide to coincide with the debate, potentially raising the stakes. The grass-roots social media movement known as I Am 132 is gaining reach and influence as it has gone after the PRI and big Mexican media companies, especially Televisa, the nation's biggest TV network and the target of accusations that it has sought to manipulate public opinion in Peña Nieto's favor.

Here's an update on the campaign leading into Sunday's debate.

Enrique Peña Nieto

The PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional in Spanish, and pronounced  "pree") ruled Mexico for much of the 20th century until it was ousted by voters in 2000 after decades of corruption, scandal and economic crises. This year, it is poised to return to power.

Peña Nieto, former governor of the central state of Mexico, faces two main rivals: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, representing a leftist coalition, and Josefina Vazquez Mota, a conservative. The parties are poles apart ideologically but united in their disdain for the PRI, with histories of struggle against its authoritarian leanings.

The Peña Nieto campaign has been forced to confront corruption allegations against former PRI state governors and accusations that the party shells out cash for favorable polls and media coverage. The party and Peña Nieto's campaign on Friday were denying a newly published report that his office appeared to have paid millions to Televisa after taking the governor's office in 2005, for favorable coverage on TV and in Televisa publications.   

Nevertheless, the PRI's campaign has been run smoothly and holds a double-digit lead in most polls.

Its main opponents -- Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition led by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and Vazquez Mota's National Action Party, or PAN -- have long ruled out forming a broader alliance to challenge the PRI in the presidential vote. But a grass-roots student-led movement opposed to the PRI has provided a jolt to the race and is a likely factor in Peña Nieto's slight dip in support in several polls.

Though his lead remains strong, analysts note that as many as a quarter of voters say they remain undecided.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Lopez Obrador, who barely lost in the 2006 race and never accepted the results, is running again and has moved into second place in most polls.

On Wednesday night, during a tense conversation with panelists of Televisa's "Third Degree" program, Lopez Obrador said calmly that he was sure to "win again" and that his campaign's tracking polls showed he had moved two points ahead of Peña Nieto.

Even if that proves to be a bluff, recent developments are a reminder that Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, commands a formidable base and that he has been boosted by the I Am 132 movement.

Lopez Obrador's opponents are eager to remind voters of his less than flattering image as a polarizing figure. Attack ads against him were rolled out this week, including one by the PAN that doctors a fragment of a recent Lopez Obrador speech to make it seem as if he supports armed revolutions.

Lopez Obrador called the new ads the start of a "dirty war."

Josefina Vazquez Mota

The PAN also has some supporters in the I Am 132 movement. But Vazquez Mota, a former Cabinet member under the two PAN presidencies since 2000, has lost traction overall, slipping to third in the polls.

The first woman to bid for Mexico's presidency from a major party, Vazquez Mota has sought to convince voters she would be a "different" president, but she has so far been unable to connect broadly with female voters.

Perhaps worse, she's taken hits from senior figures in her own party, some of whom appear to be breaking for Peña Nieto.

On Sunday, former PAN President Vicente Fox suggested he would support Peña Nieto and that other party members should do the same. Vazquez Mota's campaign denounced Fox vehemently for the apparent betrayal. Fox, after all, is the man whose victory removed the PRI from power.

A former PAN president also said he would be supporting Peña Nieto.

The Student Factor

The presidential campaign took on a new player May 11, when Peña Nieto was surprised by a tempest of jeers from students during an appearance at the private Ibero-American University in Mexico City. He and PRI leaders then came under fire when they suggested initially that the protest was staged or orchestrated by a rival party.

In reply, 131 Ibero students who participated in the protest recorded themselves holding up their university ID cards or repeating their student ID numbers. The video went viral on social networks and spawned a movement taking its name from a Twitter hashtag, #YoSoy132, or "I am 132."

Counterparts at some 35 universities across Mexico have joined. The students have held demonstrations calling for more transparency in the news media and protesting the PRI's history of corruption and repression. They have also taken aim at the soaring drug-related violence during the PAN's tenure.

The I Am 132 phenomenon has already had an impact on the race. Under pressure, the two dominant networks, Televisa and TV Azteca, agreed to show Sunday's debate on their main channels, after relegating the first debate, on May 6, to secondary channels.

Last week, the students held a "general assembly" on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and, after hours of debate, agreed on a 15-point platform, declaring the movement officially nonpartisan.

Students have called for a third debate between the presidential candidates, to be organized and moderated by the I Am 132 movement. Lopez Obrador, Vazquez Mota and a fourth candidate, Gabriel Quadri, of the fringe New Alliance Party, have agreed to attend. Peña Nieto has not.

Photo: A Mexican university student member of the I Am 132 movement holds a banner in Mexico City on May 31. Credit: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Busty hostess steals limelight in Mexico presidential debate

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- It was, in a manner of speaking, the biggest moment of Sunday night's presidential debate in Mexico.

To mark the debate's start, a stunning, undeniably well-endowed model took the floor, smiling silently and carrying a box with four pieces of paper in it that candidates drew to see who went first.

The candidates managed a straight face, but at first sight of her, dozens of journalists inside the debate press room at Mexico City's World Trade Center gasped and jeered.

The woman, identified later as a model and former playmate for Mexican Playboy, Julia Orayen, almost immediately became a trending topic on Twitter.

Orayen was serving as an edecan, a role that has long been traditional to formal political, business, or entertainment events in Mexico.

The edecan is a sort of hostess who stands during meetings or parties to help guide or coordinate guests. They are usually attractive young women with long hair who wear sexy dresses and heels, a feature of Mexican public life that some consider a throwback to the culture's more macho tendencies.

"Who won the debate?" one Twitter user quipped. "Edecan: 93%."

As photos of the debate's busty model kept abuzz online overnight, analysts and even some of the candidates on Monday morning took the edecan as a topic serious enough to discuss on the morning news radio programs.

Speaking to host Carmen Aristegui, presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota said she thought Orayen was "very attractive" but that her dress was inappropriate for the generally serious nature of the debate, the first of two organized by the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE.

"The truth is, Carmen, I want to say that suddenly I was surprised, and I [thought], 'Well, what sort of event are we attending here?'"

Playing defense, a member of the IFE's governing council said that the edecan was hired by an independent production company contracted to organize the debate, but Councilor Alfredo Figueroa would not identify the producer (link in Spanish).

"We asked the producer that there be no elements of distraction, for a sober dress," Figueroa said.

Orayen had her own opinion on the matter. The model told W Radio host Brozo -- who wears a clown costume -- that she felt "weird" by the sudden surge of attention. 

"I just got a call to be there, I didn't know what it was going to be about, and much less that it would have such an impact for 30 seconds," Orayen said.

"The costume ... intrigued me," Brozo replied.

"I got a call for a white dress. I took many options, and this was the one chosen by me," she said.

RELATED:

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* Image: In a screen shot of Sunday's video feed of the presidential debate in Mexico, model Julia Orayen carries a clear box to each of the candidates. Credit: Twitpic.com, via Twitter

Mexico's presidential candidates offer some colorful surprises

** Originally published at World Now, by Daniel Hernandez and Cecilia Sanchez:

MEXICO CITY -- The four candidates for president of Mexico met in a two-hour debate on Sunday night that saw several colorful surprises but few signs that one candidate pulled away with a sure win.

Although the format was tightly controlled, with pre-approved questions written on paper and chosen from a row of boxes, a string of attacks and counterattacks on the part of the candidates offered a much livelier evening than initially expected.

Enrique Peña Nieto of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, held up a blown-up photograph of a newspaper article referring to a 2004 corruption case tied to leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Lopez Obrador, in turn, showed a photograph of Peña Nieto sitting arm in arm with former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the PRI, a move meant to remind voters of the corruption and repression that occurred in the Salinas administration.

"Pure lies, pure insecurity, and that's how they want to impose [the candidacy of] Peña Nieto," Lopez Obrador said, referring to his long-held belief that the dominant television network Televisa is unofficially supporting the PRI campaign.

(The populist candidate for the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, however, held his photograph upside down for several seconds.)

The lone woman in the race, conservative Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party, or PAN, concentrated her attacks on Peña Nieto, who entered the debate as the front-runner in all polls.

Vazquez Mota drew attention to the tragic and seemingly unbelievable death of 4-year-old Paulette Gebara Farah, which occurred under Peña Nieto's term as governor in the state of Mexico.

"I am different because I have a trajectory of honesty and I come from two governments that have not mortgaged the lives of your children," Vazquez Mota said, referring to her party's two consecutive terms in power.

The fourth-place wild card, teacher Gabriel Quadri, tried his best to refer to himself as a "citizen" candidate, unlike his three leading rivals, while lobbing attacks across the board.

Despite the surprises, the first debate in the 2012 election was strictly moderated.

There was no live audience in the same room with the candidates, and no pre- or post-debate conference for the reporters and photographers who gathered in a press room far from the candidates' set at Mexico City's World Trade Center. The candidates stood at podiums facing cameras, not one another.

Before the debate, on the leafy streets outside the World Trade Center, some of the candidates' supporters gathered to rally and cheer on their favorite.

"We are sure that Enrique Peña Nieto is going to win the debate and the presidency," said Ernesto Alcantara, 28, an engineer. "We are here to tell him that he is our candidate, that we trust in him, and that he has our support."

Benita Soto, a 24-year-old student, said she was supporting Lopez Obrador because she said he offers an alternative.

"Enough of the bad governments of the PAN and the PRI," Soto said. "Lopez Obrador is the good guy."

Mexicans vote on July 1 in what will be the second presidential race since the PRI was voted out of power in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox of the PAN. In 2006, Lopez Obrador came within less than a percentage point of winning the presidency, which ultimately went to President Felipe Calderon -- results Lopez Obrador still claims were fraudulent.

Peña Nieto, known for his telegenic qualities but facing consistent criticism about his intellectual mettle, is attempting to ward off any potential shift in the race by Vazquez Mota or Lopez Obrador.

Analysts believe many Mexicans are willing to vote the PRI back into power after two terms of conservative, neoliberal-leaning PAN presidencies and the horrific violence brought by the drug war.

"I propose changing fear for hope, I propose changing Mexico," Peña Nieto said.

The next debate is scheduled for June 10.

* Photo: People watch the 2012 presidential campaign's first televised debate at Mexico City's Zocalo, or main square, on Sunday night. Credit: Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press

Mexican reporter killed in another case unlikely to be solved

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- If the long list of unsolved murders of journalists in Mexico offers any indication, there is little likelihood that justice will be reached in the weekend death of magazine reporter Regina Martinez.

Little chance of a credible arrest. Little chance of charges or a successful prosecution for her killer or killers.

The 49-year-old journalist was found dead in her home in the state of Veracruz on Saturday, beaten and strangled to death. She was a correspondent for the national investigative news magazine Proceso and based in Xalapa, the capital of a coastal state where violence and corresponding impunity are widespread.

A neighbor called police after noticing Martinez's front door was left open since morning. The day before, Martinez was reporting on municipal police officers arrested for alleged links to organized crime. Throughout her career, Martinez reported on organized crime and corruption, including a 2007 case of the rape and killing of a indigenous woman at the hands of Mexican soldiers.

Martinez, a native of the state she covered, is at least the fourth journalist killed in Veracruz since Gov. Javier Duarte took office in late 2010, reports have noted.

Last year, a newspaper columnist and his wife and son were shot to death during an ambush in their home. A woman covering crime in the port of Veracruz was found decapitated. And a rural Veracruz columnist was kidnapped in March and found dead in May.

All those cases remain unsolved, said Mike O'Connor, a representative in Mexico for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which says that more than 40 journalists have been killed or have disappeared throughout the country since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.

The Duarte administration said it was investigating Martinez's murder and formed a special commission Sunday that includes the participation of Proceso's founder, Julio Scherer. But "given the history, there's very little likelihood that there will be justice in this case," O'Connor said.

Already, Veracruz prosecutors said one line of investigation is that Martinez may have been killed in a robbery. Two cellphones, a laptop computer and plasma television screen were stolen, they said.

"That is how they are going to minimize the gravity of this murder," Jose Gil Olmos, a fellow reporter for Proceso, said in an interview on Monday. "It is a message of power and impunity. That is the lesson of this act."

Calls made to the Veracruz state government were not returned.

Nationally, efforts to protect news gatherers during 5-1/2 years of high drug violence have been feeble or ineffective. The post of special federal prosecutor to investigate crimes against "freedom of expression" was created in 2006. But it has mainly operated as a revolving door for bureaucrats, and closed no significant cases. The latest official tapped to head the post was appointed in February.

On Monday, as previously scheduled, the lower house of Congress unanimously passed legislation meant to further help protect reporters (link in Spanish). Martinez's killing was memorialized from the chamber's floor with a minute of silence. But press advocates, in exasperation, said the basic problem remains. Killers are rarely brought to justice.

"There is simulation by the state," said Antonio Martinez, spokesman for Articulo 19, a free-speech advocacy group. "We have more than enough mechanisms for protection. Nevertheless, they fail to attack the impunity."

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Photos, from top: Journalists embrace during a demonstration in Mexico City condemning the killing of fellow journalist Regina Martinez in Veracruz on Saturday (Credit: Marco Ugarte / Associated Press);  Martinez, in an undated photograph (Revista Proceso).

Leading Mexico candidate, actress wife star in reality TV campaign ads

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- The campaign for the front-runner in Mexico's presidential election is producing reality TV-style documentary videos that show him kissing and flirting with his wife, eating ice cream and returning home after a day on the campaign trail to hug his daughters.

The videos constitute a new level in the blurring of lines between politics and pop media in Mexico, and appear to be energizing support among voters.

Enrique Peña Nieto, galloping toward the July 1 vote with a double-digit lead over his two main rivals, would be the first president from the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the 21st century. The PRI, often labeled through its history as quasi-authoritarian, was booted from power in 2000.

The videos primarily star Peña Nieto's wife, telenovela actress Angelica Rivera, and are narrated from her perspective under the title, "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feel" (links in Spanish). In them, she follows her husband to campaign events and chats with him between stops in clips that feel like journals or diary entries.

One ends with Peña, 45, and Rivera, 41, arriving home and letting the viewer in on plans for an evening of dinner, bathing and bedtime. In another, he samples local ice cream. Here's a new clip from a stop in Villahermosa, in the state of Tabasco:

The videos are meant to show an informal, intimate side of the couple, who married in 2010 after the sudden death in 2007 of Peña Nieto's first wife, Monica Pretelini, while he governed the central state of Mexico. The clips have garnered thousands of views on YouTube and "likes" on Facebook. There, Rivera's public page frequently posts casual snapshots of her and her family.

Political advertising in Mexico's two most recent presidential campaigns, won by Vicente Fox in 2000 and fellow conservative Felipe Calderon in 2006, has moved steadily toward a more U.S.-style media approach. The PRI's effort this year takes the current social-media orientation of Mexican politics to a new level.

Peña Nieto personifies the trend, making some political commentators bemoan the nature of the 2012 race. In a Jan. 27 column in the daily Reforma, author Juan Villoro called Peña Nieto a "political hologram" and a "tele-candidate."

"There is no election today that is not decided in the media," Villoro wrote. "Trusting in this precept, the PRI has chosen a telegenic candidate. The problem is that he appears to have little more than luminous wrapping."

U.S. officials in Mexico have been watching Peña Nieto's rise for years, noting his telegenic qualities since the start, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables. One of those cables from 2009 relays a description of Peña Nieto as "a pretty face with nationwide appeal, but lacking in substance and political savvy."

His strongest detractors early on were apparently concentrated within his own party, the leaked cables show. In another from 2009, contacts inside the PRI told U.S. officials that they believed Peña was "paying media outlets under the table for favorable news coverage, as well as potentially financing pollsters to sway survey results."

His campaign has carefully guarded his public appearances, and the videos in "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feels," although edited with an unscripted, chop-and-cut flair, are no different.

During his first campaign stop in the city of Oaxaca, for example, Rivera's video diary showed an upbeat Peña Nieto greeting supporters at the city's central plaza but no images of the crowds of demonstrators who had gathered to protest the PRI machine.

The party isn't alone in pumping funds into sleek documentary-style video spots.

The campaign for Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate for the conservative National Action Party, released a video Wednesday documenting her visit that day to the prestigious Tecnologico de Monterrey university.

In it, she speaks to students in an auditorium, then responds to a protestor who yells at her from the audience. The nature of the protestor's complaint, however, is not specified, and neither is the candidate's response, for that matter. Instead, the video ends with a crescendo of music and the candidate calling over applause, "Do not tire of truth! Do not tire of liberty!"

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Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera, left, during a campaign stop in Papantla, Veracruz, on April 13. Credit: Peña Nieto campaign

Adjustments for Vazquez Mota after shaky campaign start

** Originally published at World Now:

After an emptying stadium, angry protests, and a near fainting spell, Mexican presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota on Monday announced a "change of course" in her campaign to be elected Mexico's first female president.

The race for the presidency is still commanded comfortably by front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto, the fresh-faced candidate of the old-guard party known as the PRI. As the days tick away toward the July 1 vote, Vazquez Mota and the other trailing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, are searching for a boost.

"We're going to show that we are different," Vazquez Mota said at her headquarters, echoing the ruling party's central campaign theme, "Diferente."

The candidate has struggled practically since the day the race started.

Her party's major event to name her as its candidate started hours late; and images later showed her speaking as the stadium was emptying of weary supporters.

She's been confronted by testy citizens or protesters at public events. She seemed to nearly faint during a security forum. During one speech, Vazquez Mota said, "We are going to strengthen money laundering," apparently misspeaking or misreading prepared remarks.

But how "different" were the adjustments made on Monday? Not terribly.

Several of the names announced as new campaign advisors or coordinators are identified as insiders or confidants of current President Felipe Calderon.

Among the group joining Vazquez Mota is Rafael Gimenez, who was Calderon's internal pollster until he resigned  Saturday from his post in the president's office. Also joining the campaign is the president's sister, Luisa Maria Calderon, and the president's brother-in-law, Juan Ignacio Zavala.

One local newspaper announced the shifts with the headline, "Calderonistas to the rescue."

Vazquez Mota told reporters that she is independent and autonomous in her leadership of efforts of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, to capture a third consecutive presidency. But she also acknowledged that the party's long three-way internal primary hurt her campaign in its crucial launch.

"We've had less time to prepare than others," she said.

Vazquez Mota is trailing a wide second in polls behind Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. She said that her campaign's new focus will be undecided voters, who currently account for about a third of the electorate.

Vazquez Mota has focused her attacks on Peña Nieto, but she's also taken a few jabs at Lopez Obrador, the leftist coalition leader making his second bid for the presidency.

"We're going to show that we respect the institutions, not only when we win," she said, in a reference to Lopez Obrador's refusal to accept the 2006 presidential result, in which he lost to Calderon by less than a percentage point.

Lopez Obrador's campaign in recent days has released a video showing actors and famous writers endorsing his bid, as well as an interactive image showing his potential future Cabinet in the style of the familiar cover for the Beatles rock album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

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Photo: Presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party poses for a picture before a news conference in Mexico City this month. Credit: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Caught on video, Mexico 'gentleman' faces charges in beating

** Originally published at World Now: 

 

A wealthy businessman surrendered this week to a municipal prison to face charges that he beat and violently berated an employee in his building for not obeying him.

The case of Miguel Sacal Smeke is the second scandal in recent months involving the release of video footage that captures what social-media users decried as acts of classist rage.

A judge denied bail for Sacal, a textile businessman.

He faces assault-with-injuries charges after a video emerged of him knocking out the teeth of a lobby employee in his upscale apartment building. The worker, Hugo Enrique Vega, had declined to fetch a car jack and change a tire for him.

In August, two women -- a beauty queen and a reality-television personality -- were filmed slapping and pushing a uniformed traffic officer on a swanky street in Mexico City's Polanco district over a parking dispute. The media dubbed them the "Ladies de Polanco."

Sacal's incident happened in July, before the "Ladies de Polanco" scandal, but the footage emerged on YouTube only in early January.

Disgust at the video of the two women spread for months in Mexico. Some said the "Ladies de Polanco" clip proved that race and class discrimination persist in Mexican society. Others said the video showed the lack of respect for uniformed authorities in Mexico, and the inability of authorities to enforce the law no matter anyone's class standing.

The "ladies," Azalia Ojeda and Vanesa Polo Cajica, still face charges for the August incident and had a court date on Wednesday in which they had their last interview with the judge. They are free on bail.

Sacal earned the nickname the "Gentleman de Las Lomas" (for the super-rich Las Lomas district) after the footage of his incident surfaced. In a television interview afterward, worker Vega was eloquent and even gracious when asked what he thought of Sacal's actions.

"I am not a businessman. I am simply a worker, I receive a salary, but at the end of the day, I offer services," Vega told Milenio TV. "We can't let ourselves be taken by the economic standing of each person. What's important here is to see us all as human beings."

From behind bars at the Reclusorio Oriente, a large city prison, Sacal apologized "to society" for attacking Vega, in a letter read by his lawyer Thursday. If convicted and sentenced, he faces between three and eight years in prison.

* Photo: Mexico City businessman Miguel Sacal in a mug shot distributed to reporters. Credit: Attorney general's office of Mexico City

Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video

** Originally published at World Now:

Is Mexico's an inherently racist society? Does the culture overwhelmingly favor those with light skin over those with dark skin? And if so, is that a legacy of European colonialism or present-day images in television and advertising?

These are among the thorny questions emerging in online forums in Mexico since a government agency began circulating a "viral video" showing schoolchildren in a taped social experiment on race.

The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the "good doll" or the doll that most resembled them. The children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them.

One child in the video with mixed-race features says the white doll resembled him "in the ears."

"Which doll is the good doll?" a woman's voice asks the child.

"I am not afraid of whites," he responds, pointing to the white doll. "I have more trust."

Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination, or Conapred, in mid-December began circulating the video, modeled on the 1940s Clark experiments in the United States. The children who appear in it are mostly mestizos, or half-Spanish, half-Indian, and a message said they were taped with the consent of their parents and told to respond as freely as they could.

Mexicans who saw the video said online that they were dismayed but not surprised by its results, and also offered some criticism for the agency that produced it.

Commenters have noted that the options were "very limiting" by offering only black and white, or good and bad, when in Mexico the majority of the population is mixed-race, mostly European and indigenous, and to a lesser extent African and Asian backgrounds.

"It is a poorly formulated question, it is pretentious," one user said on the website VivirMexico.

Yet many also said the video reveals a deep-seated prejudice that is taught to children in Mexico from an early age.

In 2010, the Televisa network was criticized for showing actors in black face during the World Cup in South Africa. In May, the case of a black man who died after a confrontation with police in Mexico City led to protests against Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.

Wilner Metelus, a sociology professor and leader of a committee advocating for Afro-Mexicans and black immigrants, said the doll video shows how far the country must go to recognize the prevalence of racism and the need to educate young people. 

"The Mexican state still does not officially recognize Afro-Mexicans. There are few texts that talk about the presence of Africans in Mexico," Metelus said. "We need a project in the schools to show that the dark children are just the same as them, as the lighter children. And not only in schools; it is also necessary in Mexican families."

On Friday, the daily La Jornada published a report saying black immigrants in Mexico and the Afro-Mexican minority still suffer racism and discrimination that is not adequately acknowledged by the government.

"[Dark] skin color is still associated with foreignness," Luz Maria Martinez, a leading anthropologist on Afro-Mexican culture, told the newspaper. "We do not know how to value the indigenous culture, which is very rich, or the African culture, which is as great as any in the world."

Woman candidate in Mexico says she comes home to check the fridge

** Originally published at World Now:

The lone female candidate contending for Mexico's presidency described herself as one of the millions of Mexican women who go home at the end of the day to check on the refrigerator, in comments that played on the touchy subject of gender roles in Mexican culture for the first time in the campaign for the 2012 election.

Josefina Vazquez Mota made the statements this week while responding to a question during a radio interview with one of the country's most prominent female journalists, Carmen Aristegui.

Aristegui asked Vazquez Mota via telephone to respond to seemingly negative comments about women made by front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate for the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Peña Nieto, facing criticism and ridicule after several recent public fumbles, was asked in a separate interview to name the price of a kilo of tortillas, a standard food base in homes across Mexico, rich or poor. The PRI candidate replied, "I am not the lady of the house," or literally in Spanish, "No soy la señora de la casa."

The phrase was interpreted to mean "housewife" among social-media users and commentators who criticized Peña Nieto for what some called an example of Mexican machismo. 

On Tuesday, Aristegui asked Vazquez Mota, a 50-year-old married mother of three daughters, "Are you a señora de la casa?"

"I am a woman, and as a woman I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist," Vazquez Mota said.

"And indeed, all of that along with being a housewife, a housewife who knows what happens every day at the dining table and in the kitchen," she went on. "And although we may not be there for many hours, as is my case -- and I'm sure your case and many others of us -- every night we return to that space of the kitchen, return to check the refrigerator and see if everything is ready or what needs to be bought the next day."

Vazquez Mota also suggested that she stops at markets between public events if anything is needed in her household. Directly addressing Peña Nieto's statements, she characterized them as "pejorative." 

"Regarding a price of something, we are not obligated to know everything, but what does seem precarious for me is this disdain, this pejorative attitude toward being a housewife," she said. "We have millions, Carmen, millions, that go out to take care of their children all alone."

Vazquez Mota is one of three primary candidates remaining from the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, of President Felipe Calderon. The PAN is trailing in polls behind the PRI as it seeks a third consecutive presidency.

A former education secretary and federal legislator under Calderon, Vazquez Mota would be the first major party female candidate for president of Mexico if she captured the PAN nomination before next year's vote in July. 

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party is also trailing behind the PRI under the repeat candidacy of populist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the 2006 election to Calderon by a razor-thin margin he refused to accept.

Lopez Obrador and others have hammered away at Peña Nieto  since he recently was unable to correctly name three books that have influenced his life. That appearance, at Latin America's largest book festival, in Guadalajara, bolstered the long-standing argument that the former governer of the state of Mexico is all image and no substance.

"As he does not have substance, it is not only a matter of [Peña Nieto] not reading, it is what he represents: more of the same, more corruption, more injustice, more privileges, more decadence for our country," Lopez Obrador said in his weekly YouTube address (link in Spanish).

Peña Nieto's campaign has been in damage-control mode since then, yet the candidate keeps making missteps.

His answer about the price of a kilo of tortillas came during an interview with Spain's leading daily newspaper, El Pais, in which he also could not accurately cite the minimum wage in Mexico. The full audio of that interview was released Monday.

Peña Nieto, married to telenovela actress Angelica Rivera, his second wife, has used Twitter to defend himself once more, saying in Spanish, "I said 'I am not the lady of the house' in reference exclusively to my home, not as a disparaging or offensive expression towards women."

The price of a kilo of tortillas, meanwhile, is a point of serious concern for many low-income households in Mexico, recent news reports say. That price rose this month from 8 pesos to 12 in some states, a radical increase for households that struggle to make ends meet. Overall, inflation rose in November by 1.08% (links in Spanish).

Next year, the minumum wage in Mexico will rise by about 4.2% for a number of regions and jobs, the Labor Ministry said in a statement. In the geographic zone of Mexico City, where the cost of living is among the highest, that wage will be set at $4.60 a day.

* Photo: Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party celebrates Monday after filing her candidacy for president at the PAN headquarters in Mexico City. Credit: Reuters

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 4

** ... Continued from previous post [or start with Part 1, then 2, then 3].

And here is some of the cool shit we got around to publishing in six lil issues of 8-pages each!

This was the best part of the entire Estrella Cercana operation, I think. We turned into a platform for fresh and interesting work, intersecting on the printed page across text and image, and often in interaction with pieces in the "Distant Star" show at the gallery.

We had no editorial guidelines from our publisher, the Kuris. The sky was the limit.

And as things came in, we went with the most Newsy stuff possible. Inevitably, this led to some criticisms about whether there was too much death, exploitation, violence, abuse, loathing, shock-value, guns, fascism, skin, dirty sex, and politics in our pages.

Our response, inevitably, was, 'Duh.' This is a NEWSpaper. (But with pseudonyms at work, yes.) We published, and please stay with me, the following ...

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 3

** ... Continued from previous post.

The launch of a project without an immediate precedent -- in this case, an experimental newspaper with a six-week life-span -- is never smooth. The team had to establish a working schedule that could form around our already-busy lives. We had to communicate to our collaborators what we wanted but didn't have a model to show them yet. And we had to settle on a printer.

From a year of service leading the campus paper at Berkeley (props to anyone who does it; the Daily Cal is a 15,000-circ., city-serving, five-days-a-week, totally independent operation), I knew we had to establish a solid working relationship with the imprenta Homero found and eventually hired.

One evening early on, we went to visit and personally introduce ourselves at Litografía HEVA, near Tlatelolco. We arrived on a bad footing from the get-go.

The first issue was delayed by several days due to a serious printing error in the first-run of the first issue. We couldn't introduce Estrella Cercana to our readers with huge black marks over some of the images, as the first-run turned out, and we had to convince Señor Felipe, our man at HEVA, that the printer needed to make a second-run for us. For free.

Don Felipe was cool. Chilango to the core, but cool. About fifteen years ago, he told us, he lost half of his left-hand index finger in an accident on a large cutting machine in the workshop. (See Don Felipe standing with that machine here, and his half-finger here.) We checked out machines and techniques that now only exist in analog-era journalists' nostalgic memories: off-set, movable types, plates, inks!, etc.

During the visit, Don Felipe made a weird and slightly offensive comment that ended becoming something of a calling card for us, "Este periódico no es para familias ni para gente honesta." ("This newspaper isn't for families or for honest people.")

Huh?

Our work schedule also proved challenging. Everyone on board was good for the project because we're the sort of people who are constantly juggling several projects at once. (I work as a news assistant in the Mexico City bureau of the L.A. Times, contributing regularly to the World Now blog.) We decided we would work whenever possible at the Kurimanzutto space, an environment which I ended up developing a strong admiration for, it's so well-done, or at our home offices.

Yet over the six hectic and crazied weeks, the design and editorial team never quite pinned down a reliable schedule. We worked together a few nights a week whenever we could, and rushed through galley edits at the last minute in order to meet our weekly Thursday (... or Friday...) printing deadline.

This kind of pace meant we had limited time to engage with collaborators. We needed pieces to come in clean and sharp, as ready for publication as possible. A couple things we commissioned, especially for the most "relevant" and up-to-date news reports we carried (Beyonce's baby-bump, for example, or Justin Bieber's visit to DF).

We also, you might've noticed, permitted writers to submit pieces under psuedonyms, making for a lot of unusual fun fun fun.

** Part 4, next.

(* Photo above, inside Litografía HEVA, by @demomilton.)

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 2 *

** ... Continued from previous post.

And here's how the team came together.

Homero would be in charge of the production process -- lining up the budgets, locating and contracting the printer, developing an advertising plan, handling all the transactions with advertisers and payments with collaborators, and building a distribution map. It's a huge task over-all. See this recent piece Homer wrote for Tomo.

Alberto, designer behind the Soma site, among others, would be in charge of devising a design scheme and laying out each issue. We looked at Mexican tabloids and Cuban party newspapers he acquired on a visit there. We picked fonts. Alberto subcontracted an assistant design editor, Adiranne Montemayor, also an architect. Then we brought on Javier "Coco" Rivero, the brain behind Writers & Kitties, as copy editor. (It sounds way better as corrector de estilo.)

Coco's job was to review pitches as they came in to a general email address, recommend them to me to read and edit, line-edit stuff we'd want in the paper, and handle any big edits directly with the writers. A key point for me, after the traumas suffered freelancing through la crisis, was insisting early on that contributed pieces to the paper had to be paid, like in "real life." It's the principle. Kuri agreed.

Things started rolling. We bought the Web domains, opened a Twitter, found a printer (a testy old man in the Col. Guerrero, but that's another post), hired a web manager with Rodrigo Escandon, and hired Jeromino Jimenez (aka Ñaka Ñaka) to design a unique banner background for each issue's nameplate. Online, these would be .gifs. Yay.

The gallery gave us a budget for six issues at eight pages, with four pages in color. The core editorial team decided we would reserve the centerfold, known in the old-school as a double-truck, for a strong visual display, like a poster readers might want to keep. The back page would be called FUN FUN FUN, and would be jammed with random newspaper diversion bits, like horoscopes, gossip and such. The back-page would also include the print announcement for our carefully curated audio downloads. (More on that later.)

Then, we put out the call for pitches. Here's my Intersections post announcing the launch of the project. 

This was to become the hardest part while getting started, establishing and nurturing the paper's editorial voice and character -- fast. We wanted Estrella Cercana to operate as a refraction, an interpretation, or a decoding of a "traditional" newspaper. We wanted stories and works to have a degree of intimacy or relevancy, no matter the genre or format. News for you and me.

Thankfully, weeks before, the Monterrey journalist Diego Enrique Osorno had published on a Gatopardo blog a "manifesto for infrarrealist journalism." This piece, re-published with Osorno's permission in the first issue of Estrella Cercana, became our anchor text, our baseline.

One part says:

Hagamos un encuentro nacional de jóvenes escritores militarizados o de jóvenes escritores zetas. Si algún imbécil menciona
los treinta mil,
o cuarenta mil,
o cincuenta mil,
o sesenta mil,
o setenta mil,
o noventa mil,
o cien mil muertos,
entonces hagamos algo extra: escribamos una columna de opinión defendiendo a las instituciones o leamos un haikú de guerra en el Zócalo al final de la marcha; cantemos el himno nacional o un narcocorrido antes de que comience la próxima sesión de nuestro taller literario.

Next, it came time to make to the first issue and get it out there. This initial process, as satisfying as it was, came with some ... setbacks.

** ... Part 3, next.

(* Click on the image for a larger view of one of Carolyn Castaño's Narcovenus works. * Post slightly edited)

Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 1

It's been nearly a month since the final edition of the "periódico con fin de vida," Estrella Cercana at kurimanzutto, and I've barely had time to regroup, review, and evaluate the project.

This week's series of posts is an attempt to do that.

So, from the beginning, Estrella Cercana emerged as a response to an invitation from Jose Kuri to propose some kind of intervention at the gallery. He had read "Down & Delirious in Mexico City" and liked it. The invitation was open and I tossed around ideas here and there with friends, but nothing concrete ever settled. Time passed.

One evening in early September after work, I met up with two architects for drinks at a cantina in San Miguel Chapultepec. I told them about Kuri's invite. Alberto Bustamante and Homero Fernandez and I came up with the idea for a "literary newspaper" that would accompany the gallery's show "Distant Star." The group show, co-produced with Regen Projects in Los Angeles, was titled after Roberto Bolaño's novella "Estrella Distante."

The name of the newspaper came almost instantly: Estrella Cercana. We thought the image of a nearing star was futuristic, apocalyptic, semi-cultish, and very "newsworthy"; or in other words, evoking cultural codes weighing heavily on the zeitgeist as we approach 2012.

Kuri immediately said Yes.

What did we get ourselves into, though? Activating a newspaper -- a newsroom, with different writers in different places, a design operation, an advertising operation, a publishing operation, a printer, a budget, a team -- was not going to be easy. And, crucially, we all had normal day jobs.

It also sounded like an opportunity not to be missed.

We settled on a weekly. We met with the gallery to discuss logistics and consider what ended up being a totally generous budget, a deep sign of trust, I'd say. Kuri wanted the intervention to be good. We were in agreement.

Why not?

Who isn't down to work with a new, fresh group of people on a wild creative project? Thus, the team started coming together.

** ... Part 2, next.

Mexico detains man over tweet alluding to Blake Mora crash

** Originally published at World Now:

A Mexican Twitter user was detained and questioned by federal investigators about a message on the social media site that seemed to allude to the helicopter crash that killed Mexico's interior minister, Francisco Blake Mora.

The tweet by @mareoflores appeared Thursday, a day before the suspected accident that killed Blake and seven others, and referred to the 2008 Learjet crash that killed a previous interior minister, Juan Camilo Mouriño.

That accident also occurred in early November and its anniversary was a source of buzz among Mexican social media users in the days before Friday's crash.

"I haven't left work so early since the fall of Mouriño's plane," the tweet said. "Be careful, flying officials."

The federal attorney general's office said it detained the Twitter user Sunday under its duty to "exhaust all lines of investigation" in the Blake crash. A spokeswoman said Monday that the user was found by the agency's cyber-police unit.

Identified as a 26-year-old publicist named Mario Flores, the latest tuitero to enter the news in Mexico said in interviews Monday that agents dressed in civilian clothing approached him in his Mexico City driveway, tackled him and pushed him into a civilian vehicle. He said he was taken to meet investigators and was in custody for eight hours.

After his release Sunday night, Flores was greeted with news cameras and cheers outside an attorney general's office building in the capital (link in Spanish). Flores said he told authorities that the tweet was a coincidence and that it was rooted in his experience living through the 2008 Mouriño crash, which occurred just a few blocks from his place of work.

"It's in the collective consciousness," Flores said in a radio interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui (link and audio in Spanish). "It's the same way that Americans still talk about 9/11."

Flores joins a growing list of social media users in Mexico who have been targeted by criminals or government authorities for messages posted on Twitter.

In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, a string of grisly unsolved killings is spreading fear among Twitter users who keep one another informed on criminal activity. This year, two social media users in Veracruz became a political flash point after they were jailed over tweets that state authorities said spread rumor and panic.

And in the hours after the Friday helicopter crash, the Twitter user @morf0 became a brief media sensation when a message of his seemed to predict the Blake crash, saying: "Tomorrow on 11/11, a secretary will fall out of the sky."

For his part, Flores said Monday that Twitter users should be protected, not targeted, by authorities.

"I am a user, I am Mexican, I just want peace for me, my family and more than anything for my country," he told Aristegui. "I don't want ministers to fall from the sky and I don't want tuiteros to be taken from their homes for saying something."

* Photo: A memorial service for interior minister Francisco Blake in Tijuana on Sunday / Reuters

Facts also fall victim in Mexico 'social media' killings

** Originally published at World Now:

Four people have been killed in gruesome fashion in Mexico since September for posting about drug cartels on social-media websites, the headlines and news reports say.

Trouble is, the reports could be wrong.

Information is the latest battleground in Mexico's drug war, as a string of brutal deaths in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo has produced alarming reports that social networks are under attack by the infamous Zetas cartel.

Most of the reports, however, are not built on verifiable facts. And facts have become a rare commodity in many regions of Mexico that are dominated by drug cartels.

In each case, such as a man found decapitated near a monument in Nuevo Laredo on Wednesday, the victims have been left with hand-lettered messages suggesting that they were using Twitter and the local chat board Nuevo Laredo En Vivo to report on cartels. 

In each case, the messages have warned against cooperating with the Mexican military and have been signed with multiple Zs, presumably referring to the Zetas.

But how can anyone know for sure?

Anonymous threat to Zetas, media, both falter *

* UPDATE: Fulfilling any decently skeptical person's expectations but failing those of info-war-mongers, including major U.S. media outlets and some heroin addict in Dallas, #OpCartel is basically a bust tonight. Here's my report from Friday.

** Originally published at World Now: 

A story that at first seemed to point ominously to a dangerous new development in Mexico's drug war was spiraling into confusion Friday as social-media users claiming ties to the hackers group Anonymous announced -- and then retracted -- a threat against the Zetas cartel in Mexico.

Some Twitter users who claim membership in the secretive hackers collective said they would be carrying out the attack against the ultra-violent Zetas by revealing the identities of the cartel's associates and businesses starting Saturday.

Others, however, were reporting that the attack was canceled and warned that the operation, dubbed #OpCartel, would put innocent lives at risk.

Adding to the confusion, the reason for the supposed cancellation of the attack shifted throughout the day. Did the Zetas release the Anonymous member allegedly kidnapped in Mexico, an abduction that purportedly inspired the hackers' threat? Or did Anonymous receive threats itself and cancel the operation for the safety of its members and their families?

In the dual worlds of shadowy cartels and shadowy hackers, there is almost no way of knowing, and no way of verifying such claims.

Anyone can claim membership of the leaderless hackers group. And anyone, in theory, can start a hash-tag on Twitter and call it an "operation" -- even before a single action is taken.

* Read more at the original post.

** ADD: Watch trailer of documentary on Anonymous at Wired.

*** Image: Gizmodo.

Dia de Muertos en Oaxaca *

* UPDATE: My report from San Agustin Etla, "A lively street party for the dead in Oaxaca, Mexico."

This is a Day of the Dead altar in a home in Oaxaca, Oaxaca, just now. All the elements were gathered on Sunday at the city's bustling Central de Abastos, at the special tianguis de muertos.

The pulque and tepache stand was closed. Momentary sad-face. 

Over here, we're looking at how they're passing noche de los difuntos in Ciudad Juarez; by beating up protesters and photographers outside a police station.

Honoring my dead and all of the dead of Mexico. Wherever you are, good evening.

* Previously, "In Mexico, more deaths than can we can image."

⟢ Estrella Cercana, Part 2 ⟣

Los contenidos del primer num. de Estrella Cercana ya estan en línea. Checkanlo! El periódico se puede conseguir imprentos en kurimanzutto, y varios otros locaciones entre el Centro, la Condesa, Roma, y por los alrededores.

Follow @StrellaCercana for the details. 

* More info here. cc: The one and only ... Zemmoa. ("Fun Fun Fun.")

Nuevo Laredo: Killing social media users in Mexico

** Originally published at World Now at the L.A. Times, the paper's new international news blog. My recent base at LAT.com, La Plaza, is hereby retired, but links remain live and available. Thanks for the follows and re-posts and continued tips and feedback.

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- A woman found decapitated in the border city of Nuevo Laredo is being mourned as an apparent member of a social networking site used by local residents to share information on drug cartel activity.

The victim was found early Saturday with a note nearby saying she was killed for posting messages online about violent or criminal incidents in Nuevo Laredo.

The Tamaulipas state attorney general's office identified the woman as Maria Elizabeth Macias Castro, 39, and said she was an editor at the newspaper Primera Hora (links in Spanish). The Associated Press, however, quoting an employee of the newspaper, identified the victim as Marisol Macias Castaneda, and said she held an administrative and not an editorial post at Primera Hora.

A web search of the newspaper's website found no mention of the woman's death or the discovery of a decapitated female body on Saturday.

But on the website Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a banner image appeared memorializing a member known as NenaDLaredo. "You'll always be present," the display says.

9/11

I stayed away from the news on Sunday, then logged on and looked at pictures and newspaper front-pages. From Patrick Smith at Salon:

It's not the anniversary itself that irks me. The 10-year mark is -- or should be -- worthy of our solemn respects and a national timeout. But commemorating the attacks would feel a lot more meaningful if, in fact, we had ever stopped commemorating them. Our healing process has been never-ending -- occasionally introspective and edifying, but all too often maudlin and suffocating.

Yes, exactly. Where we going with all this? What happens to America on Monday? And every Monday thereafter? More of the same, seems to me. That's the truly sad part.

* Photo via Framework at LAT. * Salon link via FAY0LA.

Taller de periodismo digital

¿Que es el periodismo digital? ¿Como se practica? De cierta manera, si, es lo que piensas: blogging es la plataforma principal. Pero el periodismo digital es algo más, es un tipo de blogging que requiere ciertas técnicas, metodologías, y ciertas éticas por parte de el que la maneja.

En este taller, que dare empezando el próximo martes, 14 de junio, en el nuevo espacio cultural .357mx en Ciudad Satélite, examineramos las características del periodismo digital, veremos unos blogs y páginas de noticias que lo hacen bien, y pondremos en práctica lo que vemos un la formación de su blog particular.

¡Inscríbense! Cualquier duda o pregunta, por favor contactenme directamente a mi correo. El link para un video de introducción se encuentra aquí.

* Imagen: Google Images

A book in a sea of books

The day before I traveled back from Southern California to Mexico City, I went to a Barnes & Noble store at one of those new suburban malls that still sprout up on the outskirts of cities. My mom and I hit up Otay Ranch Town Center, kinda east of Eastlake, east of Chula Vista, southeast of metropolitan San Diego. We wanted to see the book in its natural habitat.

With Borders going bankrupt, Barnes & Nobles is the only big bookstore chain carrying "Down & Delirious in Mexico City." We searched the long aisles of self-help books, books on celebrities in Spanish, study guides, books on crafts or pets, romance novels. I finally found two copies of my book on a low shelf in the travel section, wedged between a couple of bestsellers on ex-pat life in Mexico and some travelogues by Brits or Australians on India or the Pacific Islands. One of them had the word "savages" in the title.

The experience neither pleased nor disappointed me.

As I wrote and worked on the thing, I knew that one day I would walk into a big bookstore and see it on a shelf, an anonymous mass-produced product like any other. In Otay, it looked just as I had envisioned it. One book in a sea of books, each one waiting to be bought, each one worried that it might not happen. Its placement as a travel title also seemed a bit imprecise. But ... whatever?

It hit me. This book is no longer mine. The thing has its own life now. The process was my reward, my prize. After trying daily news reporting, weekly feature-writing, magazine work, blogging, radio, and video, I wanted to try another form to tell stories. Writing this book was that experiment, an opportunity to seize.

The process was long, hard, and often drove me crazy. I learned and grew and suffered plenty of doubt and setbacks. But I won't feign modesty. I'm proud of the work and the way the project turned out. Now I want to share it with people, and I'll keep doing so as long as you want me to. But in my mind I've already released myself of it.

That said, watching the book make its own life is exciting. I have to keep in mind that my collaborators and I might know the book intimately, but every other reader is getting to know it for the first time. That's exciting. Yes, I'm reading the reviews.

Trying drugs and writing about it is OK, people

Here's an audio interview I did with Turnstyle News, a new outlet based out of Youth Radio in Oakland, Calif. We talk about the emo riots, the cosmopolitan nature of D.F., and a topic I knew would be coming up: Why did you feel it was OK to address your own dabbling in drug use in some sections of the book?

As I tell interviewer Nishat Kurwa, in more words, of course ... Why not? Not like it's never been done before. In the interest of transparency, I showed those sections to my parents before I showed them to anyone else. Without any misgivings. Think about it: Bet a good majority of your editors and media execs -- to say nothing of your president -- went through exactly what I did when I first hit D.F., my "impossible city" in a world of many.

Listen to the Turnstyle News interview here.

I'm stopping this afternoon at UC Irvine to speak to the students of Erika Hayasaki, a former colleague at the L.A. Times and now an assistant professor of literary journalism at Irvine. This evening, Stories in Echo Park. Wednesday, I'll (still) be talking about the book to the students of Ruben Martinez, journalist, author, and professor at Loyola Marymount University in West L.A. Here's that flier.

Thursday's the party.