IPS, 6/4/2011
Last year, the online branding company East-West Communications ranked Mexico 191st out of 200 countries on its Brand Perception Index, which is generated by analysing buzzwords in the international media’s quarterly and annual coverage of a certain country.
Addressing a gathering of policy heads at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington earlier this week, Robert Newell, chief executive officer of the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness (IMCO), claimed that such a perception of Mexico has become ruinous to the country’s position in the global marketplace and must be rectified immediately.
Presenting comprehensive data on the New York Times’ and Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Mexico over two and a half decades, Newell pointed out that since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 — when Mexico was hailed as Latin America’s rising economic star — the country has gone from being a ‘shining business success story to a gruesome crime story’, a transition evidenced by a steady increase in crime-related headlines and a sharp decrease in overall coverage of the country.
‘Perhaps this represents reality, but perhaps it also reflects [media mogul Rupert] Murdoch and the fashionable fluctuations of the media,’ Newell, who served for over a decade in the Mexican Federal Government, half-jokingly speculated.
