Redmond & Televisa: A Match Made in Tijuana?

Welcome to Tijuana
Con coyote no hay aduana
– Manu Chao

In BBS: The Beeb 2.0 Touts Enciclomedia, I note that the BBC seems to be carrying water for Microsoft’s interest in the controversial Enciclomedia project, without noting any of the controversy.

It is pure rewriting of the press release in the giddy and vapid tradition of the rhetoric of the technological sublime. So this is the new “public-interest broadcasting,” eh? And the horse it rode in on.

We have seen a lot of this in Latin America lately.

The Grupo Abril’s Veja magazine and Globo’s Época both gave unprecedented and utterly sycophantic advertorial coverage to the launch of the iPhone, for instance — emulating Time magazine in that respect.

See “It’s Like Magic!” and “Cellular Revolution”.

This emerging alliance of big tech with openly and actively antidemocratic media monopolies is a significant stealth trend, I think. I tend to file it under the heading of “armed media monopolies.”

Microsoft, for example, as a partner with NBC, may well have a material interest in the recent ratfucking of Telemundo — an NBC Universal company — when it tried to impinge on the Televisa-Azteca monopoly. See Gunpoint Media Competition in Mexico.

Telemundo is about the only major Spanish-language broadcaster airing stories that reflect critically on questions about the legitimacy of last year’s elections, note.

See El Mapache: A Veteran Mexican Election Fraudster Narrates the Infamous IFE “Taking Out the Trash” Footage, for example.

Or it was, at least.

Is that criticism hurting its business prospects? Has Bill smoothed things out? Calderón has been heard recently talking up the need to “open the market to competition,” for example. But in return for what?

Televisa, however, has serious reputational problems inside Mexico. And it deserves them, I have to say.

It has recently been found to have violated elections and transparency laws with its political advertising sales and production practices, for example. See From the Armed Media Monopoly File: Televisa Vacillates.

The resemblance to the role of the media in the failed 2002 coup in Venezuela is uncanny and not, I think, accidental — Televisa, Venezuela’s Grupo Cisneros, and Brazil’s Globo have close business ties.

And there is worse to come, I predict.

For that and other reasons — see also — Bill Gates Preaches Revolution In Cartagena — I have been keeping a clipping file on Microsoft’s Latin American media relations and business partnerships.

This is starting to look like a systematic political risk management strategy to me — a policy of aligning itself with friendly governments whose main characteristic in common appears to be a marked authoritarian and antidemocratic streak. It is starting to like the Chiquita of software, I am sorry to say.

On MSFT’s Brazilian infowar operations, see, for example,

1. Brazilian Indies Protest Exclusion, CC-M$FT Partnership
2. Initiating Coverage: Infomedia TV
3. Terminology Watch: ‘Rasteira’
4. From the Autohagiography Watch: Microsoft.

Add to that clipping file: Televisa y Bill Gates. Amor del bueno. « Espacio en blanco (March 9). A prominent Mexican journalist joins the line of supplicants kissing the feet of St. Bill. See also Autohagiography by Proxy: Bill Gates as St. Francis of Assisi.

Note: The Televisa Foundation and the Gates Foundation are, in fact, collaborating on digital libraries in Mexico. On which, see Megabiblioteca and Enciclomedia: Black-Box Boondoggles?

I translate for future reference:

El día de ayer mi lector de feeds arrojó cantidad de posts sobre la entrevista a Bill Gates por López Dóriga. Me resistí muchísimo a verla, soy prejuicioso cuando se trata de estas cosas. Mi punto de quiebre se mostró cuando un post rezaba “Es la primera entrevista que ofrece el creador de Microsoft a la televisión latinoamericana en 15 años“. ¡Oh, vaya! 15 años sin presentarse a una entrevista, DÉCADA Y MEDIA… este tipo tiene algo importante que decir.

Yesterday my feed reader downloaded a number of posts on López Dóriga’s interview of Bill Gates. I resisted looking at it, I am lazy about this sort of thing. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was when one of the posts mentioned that “This is the first interview the Microsoft founder has given to Latin American TV in 15 years.” Go on! 15 years without an interview, a DECADE AND A HALF. This guy must really have something important to say.

Error. Durante media hora, el señor Dóriga vacila entre preguntas obvias y ensayadas hasta cuestiones meramente condescendientes, “¿Qué se siente mirarse al espejo y ver a la persona más rica del mundo?” Como decimos en México “¿Te cae, Dóriga?” en serio ¿Te cae? ¿Tus años de estudio y supuesta posición respetada para esas preguntas? En serio ¿TE CAE? Don Bill responde con toda sencillez y muestra señales de experiencia mediática. Bien, Bill, te aplaudo.

Not. For half an hour, Mr. Dóriga went back and forth between obvious, scripted questions and questions that were frankly condescending. “What do you feel when you look in the mirror and see the richest person in the world?” As we say in Mexico, Are you for real, Dóriga? All those years of study and your supposed prestige as a journalist? Seriously. Are you for real? Don Bill answers simply and shows signs of having been on TV before. So, fine, Bill. I applaud you.

La temática gira en torno a la relación Microsoft-Televisa, amigos, amigos. ¿Y la labor periodístca, Joaquín? No vi, en los aburridos 30 minutos, un ápice de temáticas que reten al entrevistado, ni la más pequeña muestra de seriedad. Era mas bien un encuentro entre viejos conocidos que se ponen al tanto.

The topic revolves around the friendly, friendly relationship between Microsoft and Television. But what about doing some journalism, dude? In the entire boring 30 minutes, I never saw a single question that would challenge the subject of the interview, or the slightest sign of journalistic seriousness. It was more like a reunion of old acquaintances, who act accordingly.

Eso sí, cuando se prestó la oportunidad, el entrevistador no perdía ni un segundo para dejar bien claro que Gates está con Televisa, un aliado poderoso, sin duda.

But given the opportunity, the interviewer lost no time making it very, very clear that Gates is with Televisa. A powerful ally, to be sure.

Latentes quedan las intenciones de la coalición entre los 2 titanes para intervenir en la educación… ¡Cuidado!

Efforts by the coalition of two titans to intervene in the area of education are in the offing. Watch out!

Por supuesto de este último punto no nos informan, no se hacen preguntas claras, lo dejan a la imaginación. Y me imagino que no sabremos nada hasta que sea muy tarde.

Obviously they did not actually tell us that, no clear questions about it were asked, they leave it to your imagination. And what I imagine is that we will not know a thing until it is way too late.

Pero vamos a una pregunta (la única) que es interesante: Dóriga inquiere ¿Cuál es la relación de Microsoft y Televisa? a lo que el Presidente de Microsoft contesta

But let us get to the one interesting question that was asked: Dóriga asks “What is the relationship between Microsoft and Televisa?” To which the Microsoft president answers:

Actually, Gates is Chief Software Architect now, not president, right? He must be doing his coding in the evenings.

Somos compañías muy exitosas que podemos ver hacia el futuro para ver como podemos contribuir y cuáles innovaciones tienen sentido.

We are both very successful companies who are able to look to the future to see how we can contribute and what innovations make sense.

Y finaliza con

And he concludes,

Hay nuevos proyectos que podemos hacer juntos.

“There are projects we can do together.”

Me intriga saber qué tipo de proyectos tienen en mente como unidad, y sería la primer prgunta de un buen entrevistador. Sin embargo, el bienaventurado Dóriga evade ese tema y reformula de tal manera que sólo se dirija la atención al hombre más rico del mundo: le pregunta “¿En qué tipo de programas está usted involucrado?” ¿Qué? ¿Cómo? Primero es muy cómodo sentirse protegido de Gates y después no están lo suficientemente ligados como para ahondar en sus planes a futuro.

I am intrigued to know what kind of project that have in mind to do together, and that might well have been a decent interviewer’s first question. But Dóriga avoids the subject and reformulates the question in a way that puts the exclusive focus on the richest man in the world. “In what kind of programs are you involved?” What? Huh? First it is very comforting to know Gates is on Televisa’s side, but now they are not on the same page when it comes to detailing their future plans.

El resto del encuentro asemeja un show de E!; preguntas personales por doquier, sólo faltó un montaje con fotografías y crestomatías de antaño con música sentimental de fondo. ¡Qué bodrio!

The rest is like a show on the E! network: random personal questions, the only thing missing was a photocollage from old yearbooks with sappy music in the background. What garbage!

Claro, Windows Vista es un tema capital pero la charla no se acerca a ser un análisis del nuevo sistema operativo. No se habla ni de broma sobre la competencia de Vista, el inminente lanzamiento Apple: Leopard.

Bill Gates, Knight of the Aztec Eagle, gets pinned by Calderón de la Farsa as he surfs the wake of Bush’s convoy of gas-guzzling armored SUVs through Latin America. Calderón now says he supports the federal auditor’s demand for explanations on vast amounts of public cash that disappeared in the black hole of the Enciclomedia project. A project that Microsoft sold the Mexican government, and wants to keep on selling.

Obviously, Windows Vista is a hot topic, but the conversation does not even touch the new operating system. The launch of Apple’s competing Leopard is not mentioned even as a joke.

Entrevista o parte un esquema propagandístico pro Microsoft-Televisa, tú decides, lector.

Interview or joint Microsoft-Televisa propaganda, you be the judge, reader.

Te dejo los enlaces para que lo veas y formes tu opinión (con todo y anuncio de Tarabú), me encantaría oír tus conclusiones.

I will leave you the links — complete with an ad for the Tarabú media player — so you can make up your mind. I would love to hear your reactions.

• López Dóriga entrevista a Bill Gates Parte 1
• López Dóriga entrevista a Bill Gates Parte 2

Thanks, Mexican blogging guy. I will have a look. Do you accept comments in Portunhol?

Anybody produce a transcript of the interview?

Newsstand, Guarulhos (Cumbica Airport), São Paulo. In Life 2.0, there is no chaos … unless you live chez Obama or Le Pen, or run a virtual casino.