The Salinas Years, 1988–1994: Watershed in the Opening of Mexico’s Print Media

The six-year presidential term (sexenio) of Carlos Salinas de Gortari is considered a watershed, as it constituted the first fully neoliberal Mexican regime. Was it also a watershed in the history of journalism? On the one hand, the sexenio witnessed various ills that already characterized relations between the press and the state. It began with the hostile state takeover of a left-wing daily, Unomásuno; high-profile journalists resigned under governmental duress; and the media platform of greatest impact, Televisa’s nightly newscast 24 horas, played as propagandistic a role as ever. On the other hand, there were many advances. An end to free trips for those media accompanying Salinas on international tours; an end to the protected newsprint monopoly of PIPSA, which had long been used as a tool of control; and an unprecedented boom in the advertising market, which tempered the dependency of many newspapers upon state subsidies. By means of a holistic analysis (political, economic, sociological), this chapter argues that the opening experienced under Salinas was broader and longer-lasting than those seen in previous sexenios, despite the persistence of structural problems, such as an excess of daily newspapers (sustained as political tools), and the apparent ambivalence of Salinas himself.