Abstract

REYNA GARCIA, Víctor Hugo. Objectivity and Body Count News in Sonora’s Journalism. Rev. mex. cienc. polít. soc [online]. 2018, vol.63, n.233, pp.93-115. ISSN 0185-1918.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.2448492xe.2018.233.58859.

This article analyzes the main news frame in the coverage of the so-called Mexican drug war: body count news. Drawing upon the sociology of news production, it discusses the rationalization of this news frame through journalist’s attachment to the role of detached observers implied in the ideal of objective testimony. It employs the research technique of content analysis to examine body count news in Sonora’s leading newspaper, El Imparcial, between 2006 and 2015. The results show how the predominance of the quantification of lifeless bodies is a dysfunction of Mexican journalism’s modernization and not a byproduct of its lack of modernization.

Keywords : body count; objectivity; journalism; Sonora; Mexico.