Mexican Congress approves definitive closure of the Notimex news agency

With 59 votes in favor and 44 against, the Senate gave the green light to the disappearance of Notimex.

The Mexican Senate approved on Wednesday, December 13th, the definitive closure of the state news agency Notimex, which will cease operating after more than five decades. The process will be completed in the coming weeks, after the liquidation of more than fifty workers.

Con la extinción de @Notimex, el presidente, que se ha caracterizado por ser un destructor de las instituciones, da otro paso en ese sentido; un organismo más en la cuenta de quien ha demostrado su perfil antidemocrático y una adversión a la pluralidad: @jalfredobotello pic.twitter.com/QIwjfnfsEU

— Senadores del PAN (@SenadoresdelPAN) December 14, 2023

With 59 votes in favor, 44 against, and two abstentions, the Senate gave the green light to the plan for the disappearance of the agency, which was established in 1967 and is currently mired in a crisis due to a workers’ strike for three years.

The ruling Morena party and its allied forces achieved the approval of the ruling on the extinction of the state agency, amid the rejection of the opposition group that considered the Executive’s initiative as a measure against freedom of expression in Mexico.

En sus 50 años de existencia, Notimex forjó un reconocimiento que la llevó a ser un referente de agencia públicas de noticias; todo esto se descompuso cuando se nombró a la pseudoperiodista Sanjuana Martínez, una inepta, al frente de Notimex.

Y hoy, como el 'gangsterismo'… pic.twitter.com/yFzoDKk0Yo

— Diputados PAN (@diputadospan) November 29, 2023

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had been promoting the definitive closure of Notimex for months, arguing that his government no longer needed a news agency, since for five years it had had a daily morning conference known as “La Mañanera. ”

Opposition senator Beatriz Paredes affirmed on Wednesday that the López Obrador government has a “deep confusion between what is the generation of news and the transmission of information versus propaganda . ”

Since he began his mandate in 2018, López Obrador has also promoted the disappearance of regulatory agencies, depriving them of funding or refusing to approve the appointment of some of their members.

In 2020, more than 200 Notimex workers began a strike because some employees were harassed or unfairly fired by director Sanjuana Martínez, whom López Obrador appointed to the position shortly after assuming the presidency. The strike became the longest labor dispute that the Mexican president has faced during his six-year term.

TYT Newsroom