We have returned to the stage of prioritizing lies over a minimum exercise of truthfulness, wrote Jenaro Villamil in 2013. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

This article by Jenaro Villamil was originally published by Regeneración on August 28, 2013.

Generating hatred or moral panic against a social movement, an ideological current, or a religion is easier than seeking empathy, understanding, or a minimum exercise in journalistic rigor.

You don’t need to be a magician to realize it, but it is difficult to detox from the premise that they have applied to stigmatize the demands of the movement of the dissident sections of the SNTE (the union that Elba Esther used to control): the CNTE is against the educational reform, therefore, they are bad teachers and, consequently, their mobilizations are illegitimate.

To reinforce this syllogism, the mass media have applied the following manual:

  1. Interview motorists furious about the road blockades. And broadcast that “testimony” over and over again as an example of citizen anger.

Nothing is easier than finding a driver who swears, who demands the heads of those who block the roads, or who blames teachers for all the ills of a bad day.

  1. Generate all sorts of derogatory terms to discredit a movement and you will instill prejudice against them. “Vandals,” “lazy,” “irresponsible,” “troublemakers,” “disrespectful,” “barbarians,” “poor people,” etc.

Any content analysis of the news coverage related to the CNTE movement will show that more than 70 percent consists of labels, judgments, or stigmas, rather than a description of the problem, the demands, the positions of both sides, or even a minimal assessment of the facts.

  1. Create a sense of chaos and threat from “the barbarians.” Mexico City and its inhabitants are prone to exaggerating everything, given the high media coverage of events in this city. That’s why we also feel like “the center of the Republic.”

If someone is kidnapped in the Zona Rosa, the city descends into chaos. If Reforma or Insurgentes are blocked, the entire megalopolis descends into chaos.

If the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate are seized, anarchy reigns throughout the country.

And it is all caused by the “barbarians” who come to us from distant and poor entities such as Oaxaca, Michoacán, Chiapas or Guerrero, which in the imagination of the average television viewer or radio listener are synonymous with dark-skinned, poor and quarrelsome.

There is a high degree of induced racism in these cases. It’s not the same to be a dark-skinned teacher from Oaxaca as it is to be a well-dressed, white student from ITAM, even if both “occupy” Televisa’s facilities to demand the right of reply.

  1. Prioritize statements and opinions. These are the two endemic problems of news coverage in electronic media. The official’s statement is considered more important than the description of the facts. It is deemed necessary to prioritize denigration over making an effort to explain.

And in the case of the CNTE, the PRI-government system has been responsible for unifying the voices: the President of the Republic, the Secretary of the Interior, the PRI’s legislative coordinators in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. They all speak of “kidnapping,” of “acts of vandalism,” of “radical expressions,” and not of the heart of the matter.

Along with the “declarationitis” will come the “opinionitis.” It’s the inflammation of the personal hysteria—feigned or genuine—of television and radio program hosts and analysts. Moreover, since almost all of them write newspaper columns, they’ll echo the same sentiments.

Political correctness does not involve calling for restraint and putting the events into perspective. That comes across as radical and makes one an “apologist for criminals.”

5. Overstating some events. Now there is talk of “losses” of 4.5 million pesos in the Chamber of Deputies due to the intrusion of alleged members of the CNTE.

Why are the same commentators who are up in arms about these 4.5 million pesos not upset about the 200 million pesos that each legislative coordinator manages opaquely and unilaterally? Why are these people considered “criminals” and not those who embezzle funds from Congress?

“Violence” against a fence, but no comment the week before when a Morena mayor led an armed gang that shot at teachers and kidnapped them or a teacher lost an eye due to a rubber bullet fired by riot police.

  1. Make the “barbarians” invisible. Teachers have no face, name, or personal history. They are an anonymous mass of “troublemakers,” “lazybones,” and “enemies of reform.”

Giving them a voice is very costly because it humanizes social movements. That’s why the CNTE’s demand for the right of reply from television networks was so delicate. Do they own their own voice?

We hate what we don’t know. We’re terrified of those who tell us they’re dangerous. And, to make matters worse, if they affect our right to free movement, they’re surely violent.

  1. Mix two different problems. If teachers don’t want a single evaluation model, then they are enemies of being evaluated, therefore bad teachers who abandon children in the classroom.

And if they propose other evaluation models or declare their opposition to the Peña Nieto education reform (not to reforming education), then they are enemies of progress, defenders of interests and privileges.

What privilege does a teacher earning less than 20,000 pesos a month have compared to the enormous and complex upper bureaucracy of the SEP (Ministry of Public Education) that earns more than them and is part of the corruption network?

That, of course, is not analyzed, not documented, not important.

In other words, we are returning to the same “dirty war” script that so polarized and cost this country so much in 2006.

We have returned to the stage of prioritizing lies over a minimum exercise of truthfulness.

That’s why the CNTE’s “graffiti” on the wall of Televisa’s facilities becomes a good summary: “the paint can be erased, but never their lies.”

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