LOS MEDIOS DE INFORMACIÓN Y LA POLÍTICA

LOS MEDIOS DE INFORMACIÓN Y LA POLÍTICA

Como de costumbre los grandes medios salvadoreños dan la espalda en sus editoriales al partido de Izquierda, metido de lleno ya en la campaña preelectoral de las elecciones de 2009, lo que pone de relieve la preferencia ideológica partidista de la industria mediática salvadoreña.

No es que los medios salvadoreños estén obligados hacerlo, ya sabemos que los medios de información en todo el mundo tienen sus preferencias y lineamientos políticos. Es sólo que nos parece una noticia relevante para los ciudadanos a la hora de hacer sus valoraciones y tomar decisiones.

He aquí una muestra más de la diferencia de trato mediático a los partidos de Izquierda y de Derecha por parte de la maquinaria de información salvadoreña. Mientras el FRENTE logra hacerse eco en las paginas de uno de los medios más influyentes en EE.UU. (ver artículo en el Washington Post Abajo), en El Salvador no logra sacar un titular en ninguno de los medios de peso a nivel nacional.

“Si no está en las noticias, el evento no existe” dice un dicho dentro del mundo del periodismo.

“La información es poder”, dice otro.

Hay muchísimos más, el último: “La información es un derecho básico de los ciudadanos para que puedan tomar mejores decisiones.”

No estamos ante una amenaza del derecho de libre expresión como alega, muchas veces sin sentido, el FRENTE en este tipo de ocasiones. Cada medio es libre de elegir la noticia que quiera y de ponerla en su portada o zambullirla en algún rincón dentro de la estructura de su vehículo informativo.

Donde sí estamos es ante una gran industria mediática que informa o no al pueblo salvadoreño de acuerdo a unas sensibilidades políticas y partidistas con la consiguiente desventaja para los ciudadanos a la hora de decidir, lo que, por otro lado, no ayuda para nada a fortalecer nuestra Joven Democracia.

®Salvadoreños en el Mundo.

D.C. Area A Stop in Salvadoran Campaign

By N.C. Aizenman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 19, 2007; Page A15

It seems the United States isn't the only nation where the campaign season starts early. Fifteen months in advance of El Salvador's March 2009 presidential election, opposition party candidate Mauricio Funes has flown to Washington to woo the region's sizable Salvadoran community.

Funes, of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front, or FMLN, said the early start is intended to head off a repeat of the 2004 elections. That year, the governing party, the pro-business National Republican Alliance, or ARENA, launched a media blitz asserting that a victory by the FMLN, a former Marxist guerrilla group, would destroy relations with the United States.

Television ads and newspaper articles said Salvadoran immigrants would be deported en masse, depriving their relatives of the estimated $3.5 billion the immigrants send home annually.

"This campaign of fear was mainly directed at Salvadorans who live here in the United States. Because, even though they don't have the right to vote [from overseas], they have enormous influence over their families back home," Funes said. "So we want to reach those people to remove their fear and gain their trust."

Funes, a political commentator and talk show host, represents a break from the former guerrilla commanders who previously headed the FMLN. While in the United States, he intends to meet with State Department officials and several members of Congress, as well as members of the Salvadoran community.

The U.S. Census estimates that more than 1 million Salvadoran natives live in the United States, including 133,000 in the Washington region, where they are the area's largest immigrant group. The Salvadoran Embassy says that when U.S.-born children of Salvadoran citizens are counted, about 1.7 million Salvadorans, or 20 percent of that nation's population, live in the United States, with about 500,000 in the Washington region.

Although there is talk of giving Salvadorans the ability to vote from the United States, expatriates currently can cast a ballot only by traveling to El Salvador. This is an almost insurmountable barrier for the many who are in the country illegally or who have temporary work permits that prohibit visits home.

Nonetheless, the expatriates' ability to sway relatives in the homeland has made campaign swings through the United States a regular feature of Salvadoran politics since 1992 peace accords ended a 12-year civil war and ushered in the current democratic era.

More recently, Washington area Salvadorans have emerged as an important source of campaign funds, said Geoff Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonpartisan think tank.
"You now have people over here who are well connected, who have the potential to raise real money, and I think members of both parties see that and are targeting the community," he said.

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