THE MEDIA : Giving Mexicans News They Can Trust : Political commentator is new executive at No. 2 TV network, where he hopes to instill credibility.

On any given day in Mexico, nearly a third of the nation’s 90 million people tune in to the evening news--and the majority of them don’t believe a word they hear.

This paradox, found in independent polls and ratings surveys, speaks volumes about the incongruities in Mexico’s national television industry, which has become one of the world’s most powerful national media even as it has remained relatively unsophisticated.

It also helps explain why 42-year-old Sergio Sarmiento, one of the nation’s foremost independent political and economic commentators, is about to abandon an 18-year career as editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Latin America edition in a bid to revolutionize Mexico’s broadcast media. Beginning next week, Sarmiento will take over as vice president in charge of news at Television Azteca, the nation’s second-largest network.

Sarmiento’s goal: to build credibility into national television news. For Sarmiento, whose biting columns appear regularly in several major newspapers here, the timing is critical.

“The country is changing, and the rules are changing. It’s time for television to change too,” he said of an officially sanctioned reform process aimed at ending 66 years of authoritarian rule by a single political party and its supporters--among them Mexico’s largest network, Televisa.

Outlining his goals, Sarmiento underscored the low ethical and professional standards at the two private networks, which together control nearly 300 local stations nationwide. After weeks of studying the operation, he said, “I’m going to try to establish a clear list of standards for ethics and objectivity.

“For example, if you give one point of view, you have to give the other point of view. They don’t do that now. Then I’m going to get the anchor to stop editorializing on the air. I’m going to try to inject some professionalism.”

The importance of the task is in the statistics. As many as 28 million Mexicans watch the evening news, and a 1993 survey by the independent Laboratory of Opinion Studies found that far more Mexicans own television sets than telephones. In fact, 47% of the random sample said they had no phone; less than 1% had no TV.

Raul Trejo Delarbre, author of a book on Mexican TV, noted that many viewers consider reporters biased. “Nevertheless, the majority of viewers continue watching those same reporters and anchors every night” because of “the absence of options.”

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Trejo and the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, which monitors news broadcasts for fairness, have both concluded that the two major networks--Televisa, in particular--have long practiced self-censorship because of their dependence on the government for station concessions, advertising and information.

“The stations feel that intense self-censorship will help their own development, because the government will favor them and be more supportive in return,” said Manuel Martinez, assistant director of media research at the human rights academy.

Much is at stake. The federal government controls the frequencies and concessions for all television stations--public and private. It awards them without competitive bidding. The first private channels were given to three prominent, pro-ruling party families about 40 years ago. Those families formally combined their operations in the early 1970s to form the media giant Televisa, which controls at least 90% of the market.

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Televisa went public in late 1991, offering shares on the Mexico City and New York stock exchanges, where it is still traded. By that time, Televisa Chairman Emilio Azcarraga had bought out most of the other families. Today, Azcarraga and his family, key supporters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, retain controlling interest. The academy’s monitoring reports routinely show a heavy pro-government bias in Televisa’s broadcasts.

It is only within the past two years that the first vestige of real competition appeared on the horizon. In July, 1993, Ricardo Salinas, owner of Mexico’s largest chain of electronics stores, offered the government $640 million for two networks the government was selling in its privatization program.

Salinas, who is not related to former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, has met with frustrations since he took over what became Television Azteca. In part to bolster his new network’s image, Salinas linked up with the United States’ NBC-TV, which now owns 10% of TV Azteca and broadcasts Tom Brokaw’s evening news, dubbed in Spanish, throughout Mexico.

Sarmiento says there shouldn’t be a need for NBC’s news here.

“If I have my way,” he said, “I want to have the kind of coverage that doesn’t make people have to watch a U.S. network to find out what’s really happening in their own country.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A TV Revolution?

‘I’m going to get the anchor to stop editorializing on the air. I’m going to try to inject some professionalism.’

Sergio Sarmiento, new Television Azteca executive

Evening News Viewers:

Televisa: 71%

Television Azteca: 29%

Power of TV in Mexico:

Of Mexicans surveyed have televisions: 99%

Of Mexicans surveyed have telephones: 53%

Source: Ibope research company