JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS

No matter what world events are competing for readers' attention, Britain's The Economist remains one of the most consistent sources for news and features from Latin America. The most recent issue alone features two stories about the Amazon (from Brazil and Peru), a piece about Brazil's economy, and a story about waste pickers in Colombia.

Behind this coverage is The Economist's Americas editor, Michael Reid, whose reporting career includes work as a correspondent in Mexico, Brazil, and Peru.

The Knight Center's Juliana Lima interviewed Reid about his work to bring Latin American news to the rest of the world.

Knight Center (KC): You wrote in your book Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul that “No news is good news,” regarding the neglect of Latin America by the outside world. In March, The Economist devoted a cover story to the drug war in Mexico. Does this mean things are getting worse in Latin America?

Michael Reid (MR): I think it is close to being a concern. Twenty-five years ago, the violence related with organized crime was much more localized in the Andean countries. Over the last 25 years, the drug trade has spread across the region, from Tijuana to Rio de Janeiro. Now the situation is particularly serious in Mexico. Organized crime in Mexico was much smaller and less powerful and it exposes certain weakness in the Mexican State. The other and bigger cloud on the horizon is obviously the world recession. Clearly this year and the next year are going to be difficult years in the region.

KC: What are The Economist’s criteria for choosing the weekly stories? Do you have any concern about departing from stereotypes and clichés?

MR: In The Economist we try to strike a balance between important new stories week by week. We try to give readers in other parts of the world the sense of the flavor of the region. But the central issues over the past decade have been the struggle to achieve economic stability and growth, which is a continuing story, and the parallel struggle to make democracy work effectively in a context of deep inequality and widespread poverty. Added to that, I would say (are) the issue of public safety and organized crime and the problems related to the environment. Obviously, once (Hugo) Chavez sees as part of his job to provide news, it is often quite hard to ignore him.

KC: Do you think the British media uses different criteria for selecting news from Latin America than the U.S press?

MR: I think the British media, with some exceptions, such as the Financial Times and The Economist, has less knowledge of, and interest in Latin America than the U.S media. Coverage is limited and shows an almost obsessive focus on Cuba and Che Guevara. The British media rarely goes beyond stereotypes of inequality and poverty in its coverage of the region.

KC: One can make comparisons between The Economist's style and the writing of the academy. Do you think the future of good journalism is the specialization of its professionals?

MR: I think it is one way. Compared to a lot of other journalists, we probably spend more time talking to academics and reading what they write. One thing we try to do is to provide the sort of rigorous analysis in a language that non-academics can understand. But I think there are other ways of doing journalism that can be successful. We have that sort of method combined with a commitment of covering the world as a whole. There is a market for that, and we have been able to carry on (growth) as a publication, even while other publications have had problems.

KC: Latin American has undergone dramatic change since the 1970s, when almost all countries were dictatorships. Today, with the exception of Cuba, each has evolved into a democracy. How do you evaluate the democracy in Latin America nowadays?

MR: Obviously they (democratic governments) vary in quality and effectiveness. The important thing is that democratic governments have held up pretty well across the region, despite the fact that there are difficulties in terms of weak political parties, despite the extreme inequality, despite the corruption and the relatively weakness of the rule of law. But clearly in some countries, democracy is under threat. I do think what we have seen in Venezuela ... -- the way which several opposition leaders have been arrested illegally --- and the trend towards abolishing presidential term limits in the region, which Hugo Chavez has done, which I’ve seen that Alvaro Uribe wants to do as well, is a big (threat) to the quality of democracy. I think it does become a threat to the quality of democracy if you have presidents staying around for a very long time.

KC: How are Latin American’s governments dealing with the rights of freedom of expression and access to information?

MR: I think in most countries you have a considerable degree of media freedom, and you also have freedom of information in the last few years, which has worked with varying degrees of effectiveness, but that is a big advance from the region's past. There are worries in some countries, particularly related to television ownership which is concentrated either in government hands or hands related to the government or in the hands of local politicians. That is the case of Brazil, for example, in some parts of Brazil. The other threat is, of course, the physical threats, the threat to the safety of journalists by organized crime.

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Photo: courtesy of Michael Reid