POLITICAL BIAS CHARGED : MEXICO NEWSMAN STIRS CONTROVERSY

Reports that Jacobo Zabludovsky, Mexico’s elder statesman of TV news, will join the staff of the only nationally broadcast Spanish-language news program in the United States has angered some viewers and provoked threats of resignation from the show’s news staff.

The controversy was sparked by Mexican press reports that Zabludovsky, the 16-year anchor of a nationally broadcast evening news program, would leave Mexico City to join the staff of “Noticiero SIN,” a half-hour, Miami-based newscast beamed by satellite to more than 10 million viewers and 300 television outlets, including KMEX-TV (Channel 34) in Los Angeles.

Passions have continued to rise in the days following last week’s reports, despite statements from officials at the Spanish International Network (SIN)--”Noticiero’s” New York-based parent company--that Zabludovsky has come here to launch an international Spanish-language TV news agency, not take over SIN’s news show.

Early this week, some Spanish-language radio and television stations in Miami began receiving calls from angry “Noticiero” viewers complaining that Zabludovsky’s presence on the program would compromise its objectivity because of his alleged sympathies for the Mexican government.

The news director’s critics charge that in recent elections in Northern Mexico marred by widespread allegations of government electoral fraud, Zabludovsky only began to cover the controversy as a marginal news item after foreign journalists had reported the scandal in depth.

Soon after, three “Noticiero” reporters publicly announced on a Miami radio program that they would refuse to work with Zabludovsky. Since then, other SIN employees, who do not wish to be identified, said any form of working relationship with the newsman would force them to walk from their jobs because he lacks credibility as an independent journalist.

Zabludovsky was not available for comment this week and Televisa officials in Mexico City did not return calls from The Times.

But Gustavo Godoy, “Noticiero’s” news director who met with Zabludovsky and other top SIN officials in New York this week, said he met with his staff on Wednesday and urged them not to act rashly because Zabludovsky’s project still is in preliminary stages.

“I do not have all the cards,” Godoy said, when asked if he would consider working with Zabludovsky. “I need to see what they (he and SIN) have in mind and how it fits ‘Noticiero’s’ plans right now.” “Noticiero’s” new director added that he would have to listen to the comments made on the radio by his reporters before deciding to take any action.

SIN officials confirmed reports that Zabludovsky will leave Televisa--the Mexican media conglomerate that owns SIN and which has broadcast Zabludovsky’s Mexico City news show “24 Horas” (24 Hours) for 16 years.

“We understand that . . . Zabludovsky is leaving Televisa to found and head an international news agency,” said Maite Saralegui, an SIN spokesman. SIN, Saralegui said, will subscribe to this service.

And although Zabludovsky will not be a SIN employee, Saralegui did not close the door on some future relationship the newsman may develop with “Noticiero SIN.”

“Many options are being considered with the objective of building upon ‘Noticiero’s’ excellent track record,” Saralegui said in a prepared statement. “Mr. Zabludovsky, one of the world’s preeminent journalists, could well play a role” in this.

Godoy said he learned in his meetings with Zabludovsky that the news agency he will head has been tentatively named E.C.O., or Empresa de Communicaciones Orbitales (Orbital Communcations Enterprise). The enterprise will be set up as a private corporation separate from SIN, Godoy said. Questions about whether Azcarraga will own E.C.O. and what markets the agency would attempt to serve, Godoy added, were not discussed at the meeting.

While many details of Zabludovsky’s relationship to “Noticiero” remained to be spelled out, Spanish-language radio and television stations officials in Miami indicated that many callers have already made up their minds about the anchorman’s visit.

Claiming to respond to calls from viewers, television station WSVC (Channel 51), a competitor with the SIN affiliate in Miami, broadcast an editorial Wednesday in support of the “Noticiero” reporters who expressed their opposition to Zabludovsky on a Miami radio show.

According WSVC’s empassioned plea, the reporters were “not only standing up to Mexican media magnate Emilio Azcarraga, president of SIN and departing president of the Mexican television monopoly, Televisa, but against all that constitutes an attack against freedom of expression and journalistic dignity.”

At the same time, the Zabludovsky story was carried by Spanish-language KTVL-TV (Channel 23) and other English-language television stations in Miami, while the AM radio station that orginally aired the protest by the “Noticiero” reporters, WQBA, continued to receive calls from enraged listeners.

News Director Tomas Regalado said WQBA has heard from hundreds of listeners who say that “Noticiero’s” “objectivity and independence will be compromised with the presence of Zabludovsky because he is seen as too closely tied with the ruling government party in Mexico.”

In Los Angeles, KALI radio, a local AM station, will broadcast a call-in show throughout the day today focusing on Zabludovsky’s move to the United States as part of an ongoing series on the political controversies that have wracked Mexico in recent months. A KALI spokesperson said the topic was selected because of the growing public criticism of Televisa in the wake of its coverage of July’s electoral races in Chihuahua and other states in northern Mexico.

During the elections, representatives of the nation’s major opposition party, PAN (National Action Party), claimed that widespread electoral fraud committed by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) robbed them of the governorship in Chihuahua.

While some PRI officials admitted some voting irregularities, the same officials said the overwhelming sentiment of voters was accurately represented in PRI’s sweeping victories.

But Congressman Jesus Gonzalez Schmell of the PAN blamed Zabludovsky and Televisa’s domestic political coverage for helping maintain the PRI’s political monopoly.

“He has always been considered an instrument of the government and his party,” Schmell said in a telephone interview. “Frankly, we are happy that Zabludovsky is leaving.”