Bridges and Borders:
Latin America... Read All About It
by Ron Mader

Is anyone satisfied with the coverage your average, daily media provider grants Latin America?

Visiting Mexico City this fall, I was under the impression from my local paper that anyone not being shot at was falling into a crevice created by the day's earthquake. Does the media have to portray this region via the rubric of Coups and Earthquakes reporting?

Unfortunately, sensationalism aside, the mainstream media has little to say about this region. It seems we get ten times the amount of information from Russia and Israel than we do from Brazil and Mexico - don't even imagine that countries such as Ecuador and Uruguay might deserve more than a mention every other year in the U.S. press.

Thank goodness Latin American publishers are offering their materials directly to the public. Ecuador's daily Hoy, for example, has both a web site and a listserv which delivers highlights from the paper to a growing readership. This is an excellent newspaper, and it's good to be able to read it, even when I am 2,000 miles away. (Planeta.com has regional news sources indexed for Mexico , Central America and South America.)

Personally, I'm worried that the information I need to figure out what's happening south of Texas will be available, but charged by the byte. I'm also concerned with the type of catastrophic picture we journalists end up painting. It's not that the bad news is untrue, it's just that it's not the whole story.

Obviously, the current lack of reportage is not because nothing is happening. There are plenty of news services and regional correspondents. Editors choose not to cover Latin America, assuming that their audiences don't care about the region.

Publications that cover Mexico, for example, have had trouble with marketing. Until this fall, I was the border correspondent for Mexican Environmental Business. This expensive newsletter folded in August because the publishers feared that the business - certainly in a sluggish state - wouldn't improve in the near future.

But for all of the NAFTA-related publications that debuted with high hopes and sunk with their heads between their knees, I'm reminded of Las Vegas gambling - you don't buy high and sell low. Instead, you wait out the difficult cycles. Good times will return.

Depsite the economic and political problems in Mexico, U.S. business is heading south, as are the politicians, entertainers and travelers. Finally, we have more pulling us to Latin America than four star resorts and pristine beaches (although very nice, they are also typically isolated).

Ecotourism allows these countries to show off and protect their natural gems while the business enables local communities to develop economically. Or so we hope.

Planeta.com strives to provide environmental news and information for the conscientious traveler. Have a reason for going to Latin America, and then lock on - read all about the place you're intending to visit. We've established an online archive for those interested in journalism.

This issue, number eight, celebrates the written word with reviews of an armload of good books. It's interesting to note that all the major tour guides pay homage in one manner or another to ecotourism. This is not a fly-by-night buzzword, but a means to sharing the experience of people and nature with one's fellow travelers.

Media leaders simply need to be more imaginative. Note this is a boom time for expensive business journals and Latin American usenet groups alike. The 1990s will be recognized for the emergence of a new type of publishing - which may finally eschew both cheerleading and pessimistic doomsaying - that can finally paint a realistic picture of this region.

PLANETA.COM GUIDES

Home | About | Advertise! | Books | Central America | Ecotourism | Headlines
Learn Spanish | Mexico | Media | Site Map | South America | World Travel | Updates