By J. Antonio Ruiz H. @jantonioruizh
May 8, 2024, 12:25 PM EDT
The opposition even invented that AMLO was going to cancel private property and that suddenly, homeowners in Mexico would have to accommodate several families in their home.
Pure nonsense!
It was a chain message on WhatsApp to a group of family or friends, warning and terrifying with such an insane mistake, with an implausible situation, disguised as a very poorly written news item and even with spelling mistakes.
I can tell you that no, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum will not close the Basilica of Guadalupe in the event that, as serious polls suggest, she wins the presidency of Mexico on June 2.
On Tuesday, May 7, the candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and her allies had to upload a video to her social networks to deny this inconceivable fake newsensuring that it is one of the most absurd he has seen.
The outrageous falsehood was published by a pseudomedia that identifies itself as “Veracruz Sur Informativo” with the domain veracruzsurinformativo.com, in a kind of note frankly written with its paws, with very poor writing and spelling mistakes. The link was shared on several social networks and the rest is history.
Anyone with half a brain (by the way, that idiomatic expression has its origins in the pseudoscience known as “phrenology”) could have realized the lie that was right under their noses. Keep in mind that a statement this excessive would have immediately made waves, not only in Mexico, but in the world, and would be echoing in all corporate media… But it was only published in the highly recognized portal “Veracruz Sur Informativo” (note the sarcasm).
Even so, there were the most abject public figures who shared the lie on their social networks, such as the scoundrel Manuel Clouthier, Jr., one of the representatives of the worst that Mexican politics can offer today, whose only merit has been bear the surname of his father, of whom he is not even an imitation. The former deputy even questioned on a social network with the grotesque arrogance that characterizes him, whether Sheinbaum also proposed “in exchange a cult center for the tropical messiah.”
A few days ago, a dear friend who lives in San Bernardino, California, wrote me a text message to ask me a series of questions about the approaches and “news” that she receives via WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram or from family members and friends; rumors of the most unprecedented that circulate in these electoral times. And she knows what? This is not the first time someone has asked me about this kind of nonsense.
We spoke on the phone and he told me that people with a university education, stable jobs in the United States and Mexico have shared with him a series of the most absurd statements (such as the nonsense of saying that Sheinbaum is going to close the Basilica) he lowered the logic of that everything that smells like López Obrador is bad or reprobate… And look, neither the president of Mexico has that perfection that only belongs to the Creator, nor is he the worst of the demons as his adversaries have wanted to paint him, in the middle of desperation, due to the great approval of Mexicans that he has maintained throughout the six-year term.
But talking about the dogma with which a sector of society conceives President López Obrador to the point of expressing a pathological and absurd hatred, is not the interest of this column, but rather identifying those fake news that poison political discourse in the midst of a true war of narratives.
Know that journalism, even opinion, must always be supported by hard and reliable data, evidence and testimonies. The same rules that are used in the scientific method apply to any of the journalistic genres: Observation (the questioning of the main questions of journalism known in English as “The Five Ws and H”. – Who, what, when, where, why and how), the formulation of a hypothesis, the design and implementation of experiments (in this case it would be the conduct of journalistic research through interviews and collation of information), the analysis of data and conclusions, and the communication of the results.
Simply put, it is “journalistic rigor”, the great adversary and enemy of speculation and lies.
Antonio Ruiz is a Mexican journalist who graduated from the Carlos Septién García School of Journalism; He has a degree from that institution and a professional license issued by the National Registry of Professionals of the SEP. Currently, he is the general director of News at Sin Censura TV, where he also collaborates with his on-air comments as host of the program “Al Despertar con Antonio Ruiz.”