Mexico. The Telecommunications Law Institute, IDET , expressed its deep concern regarding the suggestion made from the field of public media by Gabriel Sosa Plata, who currently serves as Ombudsman of Channel 22.
This public servant published on his X account (formerly Twitter) a message in which he pointed out that "if just as free textbooks are being reviewed, we do the same exercise of reviewing the contents of radio and television and see who has more errors, who violates more human rights, who deceives or manipulates?"
For the members of IDET the recommendation made by the aforementioned public servant is alarming and becomes an unfortunate expression since it exhibits the dangerous temptations of censorship that permeate among people directly involved in the operation and daily work of the public media and therefore, of the current administration, in relation to the contents that are transmitted through the programs of private radio stations and television channels. particularly those of commercial scope.
The current constitutional and legal framework protects and privileges freedom of expression through Mexican radio and television, as well as programmatic freedom for both broadcast radio and television concessions and telecommunications concessions for the provision of restricted television or audio services.
In the context of the public debate on the procedure followed for the preparation of free textbooks, for the members of IDET it is extremely worrying that from the field of public media it is intended to impose an interpretation of what is established in Article 6 of the Constitution, Section B, Fraction III on the role of broadcasting as a public service of general interest.
III. Broadcasting is a public service of general interest, so the State shall ensure that it is provided under conditions of competition and quality and provides the benefits of culture to the entire population, preserving the plurality and veracity of information, as well as the promotion of the values of national identity, contributing to the purposes established in Article 3 of this Constitution.
The wording of this constitutional provision is precise: the State has the obligation to guarantee that the broadcasting service is provided under conditions of competition and quality, so that this service in turn provides benefits to the population and that, among other issues, it contributes to the purposes of education referred to in Article 3 of the Constitution.
From the IDET we condemn the biased and unequivocal reading of the provisions of the 6th Constitution, with which it is intended to impose obligations on Mexican radio and television in educational matters that the Constitution certainly does not provide.
This distorted reading such as the one alleged from the field of public media is based on a vision that privileges or longs for the monitoring and control of the contents that are transmitted through commercial radio and television, which aims to influence what can be said in those media.
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has repeatedly held that freedom of expression is a superior good that does not admit political pretexts that justify limiting its full exercise, and that programmatic freedom is closely related to the unrestricted exercise of freedom of expression.
Therefore, from IDET we reject any pretext to review the contents that are broadcast on Mexican radio and television, while reiterating the importance of continuing to protect the rights and the legal framework that govern the exploitation of radio and television concessions in Mexico, which the SCJN has already confirmed in various resolutions.
