Mexico has elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate for the ruling Morena party and former mayor of Mexico City. But though the political climate may be changing, Mexico’s news still faces multiple challenges, from political attacks to physical safety. While decreasing advertising adds pressure to business models, the lure of artificial intelligence is becoming stronger.

This year, the main candidates for president in Mexico were both women for the first time. They communicated with their potential voters, most of whom are young, not only via traditional press channels but through social networks and online video.

This year’s presidential contenders represented two coalitions: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo for an alliance of Morena (López Obrador's party), Labor, and the Greens, and Xóchitl Gálvez Ruíz heading an alliance of left, centre-right, and conservative parties called Frente Amplio por México (Broad Front for Mexico). Galvez’s campaign adopted an innovation started by the outgoing president – morning broadcasts titled Mañaneras de la Verdad (Morning Truths), distributed through X, Facebook, and YouTube. This came after she had turned up at one of López Obrador’s morning briefings, having obtained a court order securing a right of reply to false claims he had made about her.

A third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, represented Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen's Movement political party). At 38 he was the youngest candidate and used TikTok to communicate directly with young people, a highly significant group in this election, in a fun way. Máynez claimed to be the candidate of a 'new politics’.

June’s elections also marked the end of the administration led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) – Mexican presidents are limited to a single term – though in some ways it was a referendum on him. His final year in office was much like earlier ones – regular verbal attacks on journalists, human rights advocates, and the media generally.

The highest profile verbal attack from the outgoing president this year was on New York Times reporter Natalie Kitroeff, when he displayed a letter during a broadcast which contained her personal information, even reading out her phone number. YouTube removed the video, saying it contravened its anti-harassment policies. The president was unapologetic, accusing YouTube of censorship. The Times said it was a ‘worrisome tactic’ from a world leader.

Physical attacks on journalists have not subsided in the past year, with 15 murders recorded. In one 10-day stretch in December, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists reported, eight journalists were either abducted or shot at in four separate incidents. As one widely reported example, television and radio anchor Jaime Barrera was seized and bundled into a car as he left a radio station where he worked. He was held hostage overnight while his captors demanded he tell them whose orders he follows – among his coverage of politics and other issues he also reports on drug trafficking. He said afterwards it had been an attempt to intimidate him. One possible reason for the incident is that his daughter sits on the ruling council of the president’s Morena party. Barrera has worked in various media companies, such as Televisa Guadalajara, Canal 44, and the newspaper El Informador and Milenio.

The creation of the Mexican Information Agency (AMEXI) was significant as it followed the final closure of the state-owned news agency Notimex, which had been operating for more than 50 years. Notimex had been hit by industrial disputes but its closure was seen by opponents of the president as another attempt to control information. AMEXI was founded by former Notimex employees, primarily women.

Televisa-Univisión, which was the result of a merger of Grupo Televisa and US-based Spanish-language network Univision, cut more than 200 jobs involving long-running programmes and well-known broadcasters, blaming ‘the evolution of the media landscape’. Its ViX streaming platform did what Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime have done and introduced advertising to its paid plans.

More people are using TikTok for news – up 3 percentage points to 18%. Law student Gerardo Vera, 19, is one of many individuals to have used the platform to tell stories for a younger generation. Having started covering news on social media aged just 12, he now has more than 2 million followers on the platform. He produces daily videos which attempt, in his words, to ‘democratise public knowledge’, and has received recognition for his efforts to try to remain impartial.

New rules to regulate the use of AI are being drawn up by the Federal Telecommunications Institute, but the media aren’t waiting. One radio station, Radio Fórmula, introduced an AI-generated news reader, with the aim of delivering impartial and reliable bulletins. In our Digital News Report survey, only 37% of respondents said they feel comfortable using news produced by human journalists with the help of AI.

María Elena Gutiérrez-Rentería
Universidad Panamericana

Trust in the news declined by around 15pp after the election of populist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018. During his term, he regularly attacked the news media and journalists critical of his government. CNN is the international journalistic brand most trusted by the citizens, of those included in our survey, followed by the newspaper El Universal and Imagen Noticias.