Not looking for Mexico

In an 1979 essay, Octavio Paz wrote:

In general, Americans have not looked for Mexico in Mexico; they have looked for their obsessions, enthusiasms, phobias, hopes, interests — and these are what they have found. In short, the history of our relationship is the history of a mutual and stubborn deceit.

I remembered that quote when I wrote my comment to the excellent article “The Most Misreported Country” by Michael Massing posted in the Colombia Journalism Review, brought to my attention by Burro Hall (who knows something about mainstream journalism, having actually made a living in it).

When it comes to Mexico, U.S. journalists seem interested in only four things: drugs, traffickers, violence, and corruption (with an occasional nod toward immigration). Journalists peddle a sort of drug-war pornography, salaciously and insatiably dwelling on the most lurid aspects of the trade: narcos, gangs, smugglers, pipelines, cells, mass graves, severed heads, torture chambers, dirty cops. Journalists promiscuously quote DEA agents, eagerly accompany undercover cops on ride-alongs, descend daringly into drug-infested neighborhoods, and intrepidly interview members of the drug trade.

…

This genre of reporting is actually quite old, dating back to the days of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Journalists loved writing about the Wild-West-like operations and lifestyle of those criminals, and of the valiant efforts of drug enforcers to take them down. They finally were toppled, of course. But you know what? The drug trade has continued. The same is true of the Mexican cartels. …  And the reason is clear: Americans continue to crave the stuff. We are the ones who sustain the drug trade; we are the ones who in the end are mostly responsible for the drug violence that periodically erupts in Mexico. You’ll almost never see a journalist explore this, however. It isn’t sexy. What is sexy are the cartels, and so the pretense about their lethal impact on the United States must be maintained.

Go read the whole thing, and the commentaries.   Massing hit a nerve among some of the “usual suspects” in the drug-war correspondent biz.