Twenty years of economic changes of Guadalajara’s newspapers: journalistic standardization, the emergence of the Golden Triangle, and the Hawkers’ death

• In Event: Las múltiples crisis del periodismo mexicano, I: economía, trabajo y cambio generacional

Abstract

This is a historical research on the economic transformations of Guadalajara’s (Mexico) newspapers between 1990 and 2010. The results indicate three fundamental transformations. First, many newspapers were bought by national media companies. These economic concentration processes caused that newspapers standardized their information with those newspapers of national circulation. Second, due to the economic concentration, it was created a national advertising market. This advertising market, called “The Golden Triangle”, operated only in major cities, such as Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. This market was beneficial for companies that had newspapers in all three cities, but was bad for newspapers circulating in only one city. The third change was in the distribution of newspapers. Over the years the circulation and readership rates were declining and the distribution costs increased. Thus, media companies stop using hawkers as a system for newspaper distribution. These transformations yield ambivalent outcomes. On the one hand, companies benefited from technological developments which allowed them to create greater volumes of information with lower costs of production and distribution. On the other hand, these processes had undesirable impacts. Many workers (i.e., journalists, editors, and technicians) were dismissed. Some local newspapers stopped operating due to the arrival of more powerful capitals. These processes had an impact on the production of local information, which was diminished in quantity and quality.

Author

• Juan S Larrosa-Fuentes