President Zedillo Ponce de Leon's decision to devalue the peso in December 1994 helped spark an exchange-rate crisis just a year after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Revelations about the murder of politicians in 1994, the discovery of corruption among associates of former president Carlos Salinas and the rebellion in Chiapas state all weakened the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has been in power for 66 years. Mexico is second only to Brazil in Latin America in terms of the number of media.
Television is the most important.
Two big private groups, including Televisa, control 300 regional stations and the public network is being privatised. Although there are a lot of daily newspapers, they do not reach many parts of the country. The 1,300 or so radio stations are all local. Although the media in general are more independent than in the past, they have been hard hit by the recession. Another journalist was killed in 1995 in Mexico, which has recorded more murders of journalists since 1970 than any other Latin American country.