Mexico students protest alleged media bias

05-24-2012 • http://www.aljazeera.com

Thousands of university students have marched through central Mexico City to protest media coverage they say favours the candidate of the former ruling party in upcoming presidential elections.

"We want schools, not soap operas," the protesters chanted late on Wednesday, referring to PRI presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, the frontrunner whose wife Angelica Rivera is a popular soap opera star known as "Seagull".

The students also protested against the media, specifically Televisa, the largest conglomerate broadcasting in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, which they accuse of shilling for Pena Nieto.

The students claim that newspapers and television stations are tilting their coverage toward Pena Nieto, who is leading the polls ahead of the July 1 vote.

Many of the students were from the elite Iberoamerican University, where a May 11 appearance by Pena Nieto set off a rare wave of protests by young people against a return to the presidency of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for 70 years before it was voted out in 2000.