What is the Point of Tracking US News Media Coverage about Security in Mexico?

[Judi Lynn]

By El Huaso 6/16/2023 01:30:00 PM
"By "El Huaso" for Borderland Beat


A Borderland Beat commenter asked me a fair question in response to an earlier article: what is the point of tracking US news media coverage about security in Mexico? Here, I explain my opinion on why this is worth taking a look at, and a sneak peak at a paper I hope to submit later this year.

Why is this relevant and worth our time? I argue that tracking what the US media is reporting on is a way of predicting US legislation as well as gauging public opinion on a topic. By tracking what the media writes, we can better understand what we are in for.

"The Press has become the greatest power within Western countries, more powerful than the
legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The media is a powerful force which influences legislation in a number of ways from changing public opinion which in result can decide elections, to providing the information that lawmakers use to make decisions. Several studies have examined this from several angles, but here is a concrete example: several months ago, 21 US Attorneys general sent a letter to US president Joe Biden demanding that he designate organized crime groups in Mexico as terrorist organizations. If you look at the footnotes of the letter, the sources were almost exclusively from news press articles from American sources favorable to their viewpoint. Lawmakers and their aides don’t read academic articles or expert reports. In this way, whatever the media is reporting, not what experts write, becomes the law of the land.

The media is a powerful force which influences legislation in a number of ways from changing public opinion which in result can decide elections, to providing the information that lawmakers use to make decisions. Several studies have examined this from several angles, but here is a concrete example: several months ago, 21 US Attorneys general sent a letter to US president Joe Biden demanding that he designate organized crime groups in Mexico as terrorist organizations. If you look at the footnotes of the letter, the sources were almost exclusively from news press articles from American sources favorable to their viewpoint. Lawmakers and their aides don’t read academic articles or expert reports. In this way, whatever the media is reporting, not what experts write, becomes the law of the land.

More:
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2023/06/what-is-point-of-tracking-us-news-media.html