New Players, Same Old Game

Since the eighties, the political face of Mexico has been gradually changing. There has been a shift from the hegemony of the official Institutional Revolutionary Party to a more egalitarian distribution of power, in which the other two main parties (National Action Party and Democratic Revolution Party) have gained salience at national, state and local levels. Nonetheless, it is still not clear the impact of this reconfiguration on news organizations. Based upon a case study conducted in Morelia (the capital city of Michoacan), this research argues that, despite the arrival of diverse political parties to the national, state and local administrations, the relationship between reporters and high rank political authorities remains the same. That is, the exchange of favours – economic most of the times – still determines the way news organizations and politicians interact. In short, rather than change, continuity is the rule of the journalistic practice, at least in the provinces of Mexico.