Markets, regions and journalistic quality: evaluation of the performance of print and digital media in Mexico during an electoral process

Abstract

The poor performance of the Mexican press is a frequent concern in the literature. However, this focus is on the capital, Mexico City. Thus, we comparatively measure performance between regions and physical and digital media, based on criteria of bias and mediated deliberation. We analyzed 281 news articles from 117 newspapers in 28 states about the 2021 federal elections. We found that performance is better in robust markets and worse in smaller ones, and it is more homogeneous in print media than in digital media. The latter seems to be independent of market factors, which could indicate clientelist relationships linked to the economic vulnerability of smaller markets.