1. “Aún buscan dos cadáveres en la Presa Veinte Arcos,” Últimas Noticias, January 15, 1982, p. 2.

2. Manuel Camín, “Desde el café,” Últimas Noticias, January 16, 1982, p. 4. By February, two additional bodies had been found. See Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, February 5, 1982, p. 1.

3. Even before identifying the bodies, authorities raised suspicions that the victims were involved in illicit activity. In particular, detectives pointed to the victims' expensive clothing and their “South American origins.” See Arturo Ríos Ruiz, “Culpan a la PJF de los asesinatos del Gran Canal,” Últimas Noticias, January 19, 1982, p. 9.

4. Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, January 28, 1982, p. 1.

5. Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, March 9, 1982, pp. 1, 8. The special task force was known as the Jaguar Group.

6. In March 1984 Durazo was charged with tax evasion, extortion, smuggling, and the possession of illegal weapons. Later that year, he was arrested in Puerto Rico and extradited to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Riding, Alan, Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 132.Google Scholar Buendía began reporting on Durazo's corruption soon after Durazo became chief of police. See for example Manuel Buendía, “Presupuesto Durazo,” El Sol de México, July 19, 1977, p. 1.

7. The bodies were found at Río Tula.

8. See for example Monsiváis, Carlos, “Vino todo el pueblo y no cupo en la pantalla,” in A través del espejo: el cine mexicano y su público, Monsiváis, Carlos and Bonfil, Carlos, eds. (Mexico: El Milagro, 1994), pp. 49–97 Google Scholar; Elizabeth Hayes, Joy, Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920–1950 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and González de Bustamante, Celeste, “Muy Buenas Noches”: Mexico, Television, and the Cold War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013)Google Scholar. For on-the-ground contestations of these nationalistic messages, see for example Joseph, Gilbert M., Rubenstein, Anne, and Zolov, Eric, eds., Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For gendered performances and mass media consumption, see for example Rubenstein, Anne, “Theaters of Masculinity: Moviegoing and Male Roles in Mexico before 1960,” in Masculinity and Sexuality in Modern Mexico, Macías-González, Víctor M. and Rubenstein, Anne, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), pp. 132–154.Google Scholar

9. See for example LaFrance, David G., “Politics, Violence, and the Press in Mexico,” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 12 (1993), p. 215.Google Scholar For a work in political science often cited by historians, see Lawson, Chappell, Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of a Free Press in Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), p. 35.Google Scholar For a journalist's account of bribery, see Scherer García, Julio, Los presidentes (Mexico: Debolsillo, 2007), p. 159.Google Scholar

10. By national print media, I refer to the most established Mexico City newspapers with the widest national circulation. These included tabloids such as La Prensa and the two major dailies, Excélsior and El Universal. On the characterization of the press as complicit, see for example, Cosío Villegas, Daniel, Historia moderna de México: el Porfiriato, la vida política interior (Mexico: Editorial Hermes, 1972)Google Scholar; and Enrique Suárez-Iñiguez, Los intelectuales en México (Mexico: Ediciones El Caballito, 1980). Journalist Jacinto Rodríguez Munguía, who spent seven years in intelligence archives collecting documents on the Mexican press, argues in his introduction: “In many cases cooptation and control over newsprint and advertising were not necessary for media owners and journalists, who simply took on the decisions of power as their own, opting for convenience rather than ethical responsibility.” See Munguía, Rodríguez, La otra guerra secreta: los archivos prohibidos de la prensa y el poder (Mexico: Mondadori, 2007), p. 23 Google Scholar. Notably, Roderic Ai Camp's study of Mexican intellectuals does not include the press. See Camp, Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth-Century Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985). Lawson maintains that the press did not enjoy independence until the 1993 founding of the newspaper Reforma, which coincided with President Carlos Salinas's elimination of Productores e Importadores de Papel SA (PIPSA), the parastatal company that controlled newsprint distribution. Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, p. 34. Popular accounts similarly describe the press as servile. See for example Monsiváis, Carlos and Scherer García, Julio, Tiempo de saber: prensa y poder en México (Mexico: Aguilar, 2003), p. 221 Google Scholar; and Vásquez, Eduardo Cruz, ed., 1968–2008: Los silencios de la democracia (Mexico: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 2008), pp. 93–94 Google Scholar.

11. See for example Piccato, Pablo and Sacristán, Cristina, eds., Actores, espacios y debates en la historia de la esfera pública en la ciudad de México (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM, Instituto Mora, 2005)Google Scholar; Piccato, Pablo, The Tyranny of Opinion: Honor in the Construction of the Mexican Public Sphere (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Gillingham, Paul and Smith, Benjamin T., eds., Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938–1968 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, introduction; and Vaughan, Mary Kay, Portrait of a Young Painter: Pepe Zúñiga and Mexico City's Rebel Generation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On crime journalism, see for example Meade, Everard, “From Sex Strangler to Model Citizen: Mexico's Most Famous Murderer and the Defeat of the Death Penalty,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 26:2 (2010), pp. 323–377 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Piccato, Pablo, “Murders of Nota Roja: Truth and Justice in Mexican Crime News,” Past and Present 223:1 (May 2014), pp. 195–231 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. To my knowledge, few historians have made use of these sources, housed at the Fundación Manuel Buendía (hereafter FMB) in Mexico City. The archive consists of a bookcase holding loosely organized binders. Some, labeled by date and column title, contain Buendía's published columns and a portion of the corresponding drafts. Other binders are labeled “correspondence” or “conference papers,” but have no chronological division. Many binders remain unorganized and without titles. In my citations, I have referred to these binders as “unidentified.” For those that have a number written on them, I include the number. The FMB has reproduced some of these documents in edited anthologies, but with minimal analysis of the texts. See for example Buendía, Manuel, Ejercicio periodístico (Mexico: Fundación Manuel Buendía, 1985)Google Scholar; and a work by the foundation's current director, Raúl Martínez, Omar, Manuel Buendía en la trinchera periodística: andanzas, ideario y columnas escogidas (Mexico: Universidad de Xalapa; Fundación Manuel Buendía, 1999).Google Scholar

13. There has been little historical work on the post-1968 period in Mexico due to the fact that the presidential archives of Luis Echeverría (1970–1976), José López Portillo (1976–1982), and, to a lesser extent, Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988) remain uncatalogued. For this reason, understandings of the period refer to contemporaneous scholars who emphasized the PRI's authoritarian qualities and described the regime variously as a leviathan or a “system.” See for example Cosío Villegas, Daniel, El sistema político mexicano: las posibilidades de cambio (Mexico: Editorial Joaquín Mortiz, 1972)Google Scholar; Segovia, Rafael, La politización del niño mexicano (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1972)Google Scholar; Schmitter, Philippe, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” in The New Corporatism: Social-Political Structures in the Iberian World, Pike, Fredrick B. and Stritch, Thomas, eds. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), pp. 85–131 Google Scholar; Cornelius, Wayne A., Politics and the Migrant Poor in Mexico City (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; José Reyna, Luis and Weinert, Richard S., eds., Authoritarianism in Mexico (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1977)Google Scholar; Eckstein, Susan, The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and Hellman, Judith Adler, Mexico in Crisis (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1978)Google Scholar. This perspective on the post-1968 PRI still endures among post-revisionists. For example, Alan Knight has asserted that the PRI's leviathan state ruled with little challenge or criticism between 1950 and 1980. See Knight, “The Myth of the Mexican Revolution,” Past and Present 209 (November 2010), p. 260. For a notable exception, see Walker, Louise E., Waking from the Dream: Mexico's Middle Classes after 1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Among the most prominent columns of the late 1970s, in addition to Buendía's Red Privada, were José Luís Mejías's Los Intocables in El Universal, and later Excélsior; Francisco Cárdenas Cruz's Pulso Político in Diario de México (evening edition), and later, El Universal; Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa's Plaza Pública, first appearing in Cine Mundial and later migrating to Unomásuno; Salvador González Pérez's Cuarto Poder in El Sol de México; Documental Político, originally co-written by Ángel Trinidad Ferreira and Miguel López Azuara in Excélsior; and López Azuara's Elenco Político in Proceso. This is a representative but not exhaustive list.

15. While scholars downplay criticism on front pages, they acknowledge that prominent opinion and cultural writers voiced critiques in editorials, cultural supplements, and chronicles. See for example Egan, Linda, Carlos Monsiváis: Culture and Chronicle in Contemporary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Brewster, Claire, Responding to Crisis in Contemporary Mexico: The Political Writings of Paz, Fuentes, Monsiváis, and Poniatowska (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and López, Patricia Cabrera, Una inquietud de amanecer: literatura y política en México, 1962–1987 (Mexico: Plaza y Valdés, 2006)Google Scholar. Scholars also recognize that alternative press publications could be very critical. These outlets typically had very small circulations that were limited to Mexico City, and were short-lived due to financial constraints or government intervention. See Delarbe, Raúl Trejo, La prensa marginal, 3rd ed. (Mexico: Ediciones El Caballito, 1991)Google Scholar; Zolov, Eric, Refried Elvis: The Rise of Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)Google Scholar; and Pensado, Jaime M., Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture During the Long Sixties (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. See for example Foweraker, Joe and Craig, Ann L., eds., Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990), p. 9 Google Scholar; and Camín, Héctor Aguilar and Meyer, Lorenzo, In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution: Contemporary Mexican History, 1910–1989, Fierro, Luis Alberto, trans. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), chapt. 6Google Scholar. Two prominent Mexico City intellectuals introduced their book on 1968 by stating, “To say today that the 1968 student movement represented a watershed moment in Mexico's recent history is a truism.” García, Julio Scherer and Monsiváis, Carlos, Parte de guerra, Tlatelolco 1968: documentos del general Marcelino García Barragán, los hechos y la historia (Mexico: Nuevo Siglo, 1999), p. 13 Google Scholar. See also Joseph, Rubenstein, and Zolov, Fragments of a Golden Age, p. 12.

17. The López Portillo administration provided a $350,000 credit to start Unomásuno. See Alan Riding, “Ousted Mexican Journalists Start a Liberal Paper,” New York Times, November 24, 1977, p. 7. The newsmagazine Proceso, founded in 1976, and the newspaper Unomásuno, founded in 1977, were two of the most prominent new publications of the period. They featured some investigative reportage, critical opinion pieces, cartoons, and interviews. While their combined circulation was somewhere around 140,000 issues, they set the terms of debate for more mainstream publications. My dissertation explores this in greater detail. See Vanessa Freije, “Journalists, Scandal, and the Unraveling of One-Party Rule in Mexico, 1960–1988” (PhD diss.: Duke University, 2015). Circulation figures come from a 1981 study by the Coordinación General de Comunicación Social [hereafter CGCS]. The president's minister of social communication at the time, Luis Javier Solana, retained a copy of the report and allowed me to view it in his home office. CGCS, Bases estratégicas para la construcción de un sistema nacional de comunicación social, 1981, vol. 3, Archivo Particular Luis Javier Solana [hereafter LJS], Mexico City.

18. Fraser, Nancy, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” Social Text 25/26 (1990), pp. 56–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. See for example recent accusations made by Julio Scherer García, one of Mexico's most respected journalists. García, Scherer, Historias de muerte y corrupción (Mexico: Grijalbo, 2011), p. 92 Google Scholar. For a refutation, see Raúl Martínez, Omar, “Carta a Julio Scherer,” Revista Mexicana de Comunicación 134 (April–June 2013), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

20. Quezada, Sergio Aguayo, La Charola: una historia de los servicios de inteligencia en México (Mexico: Grijalbo, 2001), p. 80 Google Scholar.

21. Collings, Anthony, Words of Fire: Independent Journalists Who Challenge Dictators, Druglords, and Other Enemies of a Free Press (New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 69 Google Scholar; Martínez, Manuel Buendía en la trinchera. It bears mention that Buendía continues to be invoked annually during Mexico's Freedom of the Press Day celebrations.

22. Recent work in anthropology also argues against judging Latin American journalism on its adherence to liberal press norms. See Schiller, Naomi, “Reckoning with Press Freedom: Community Media, Liberalism, and the Processual State in Caracas, Venezuela,” American Ethnologist 40:3 (August 2013), pp. 540–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Unless otherwise noted, this biographical detail comes from Martínez, Manuel Buendía en la trinchera, pp. 20–26. Very little biographical information is available on Buendía, and Martínez's overview relies heavily on accounts compiled shortly after his death. See Camín, Héctor Aguilar et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía (Mexico: Océano, Fundación Manuel Buendía, 1984)Google Scholar.

24. Buendía's father, José Buendía Gálvez, worked in construction and welding and later as a flour mill operator. Ángel, Miguel Chapa, Granados, Buendía: el primer asesinato de la narcopolítica (Mexico: Grijalbo, 2011), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

25. La Prensa was among the highest-circulating newspapers in Mexico. In 1981, the tabloid reported selling just under 300,000 copies each day. CGCS, Bases estratégicas, vol. 3, p. 410.

26. Camín, Aguilar et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, p. 52.Google Scholar These columns were titled Para Control de Usted and Concierto Domincal.

27. Buendía left La Prensa in 1963, due to conflicts at the paper. Between 1964 and 1965, he served as the director for Enrique Ramírez y Ramírez's new Catholic weekly Crucero, where he continued writing his columns under the same titles. Guillermo Martínez Domínguez, a former La Prensa colleague, offered Buendía the job at the CFE.

28. Buendía wrote under the pseudonym J. M. Tellezgirón. He was particularly interested in exposing police corruption. See for example J. M. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, May 27, 1966, p. 3; and J. M. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, May 31, 1967, p. 3.

29. In the early 1960s, the PRI passed reforms designed to increase political participation for young people. This included the creation in March 1960 of PRI Juvenil, which offered opportunities for young people to apprentice in national corporatist organizations, run for political office, and contribute new ideas through workshops and roundtable discussions. Other signs of division included the founding of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN) in 1961. Spearheaded by former president Lázaro Cárdenas, this group united different leftist currents in support of the Cuban Revolution and domestic social reform. As president of the PRI's National Committee, Carlos Madrazo also spearheaded a key reformist movement in 1964. He argued that the PRI should reintroduce primaries for congressional representatives and governors and allow citizens to participate in the selection of candidates. The reforms never came to pass, however, and President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz forced Madrazo to resign in 1966 for the controversy he had stirred. See Davis, Diane E., Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), p. 187 Google Scholar; Loaeza, Soledad, “Gustavo Díaz Ordaz: el colapso del milagro mexicano,” in Una historia contemporánea de México, vol. 2 Google Scholar, Bizberg, Ilán and Meyer, Lorenzo, eds. (Mexico: Océano, 2003), p. 130 Google Scholar; and Pensado, Rebel Mexico, pp. 185–186.

30. The newspaper had a relatively small circulation of 40,000 copies each day. See Editor & Publisher International Yearbook 1966 (New York: Editor & Publisher Co., 1966), p. 495.

31. J. M. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, December 19, 1966, p. 3.

32. Ibid.

33. Piccato, “Murders of Nota Roja,” pp. 208–209.

34. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, December 19, 1966.

35. Thanks to Benjamin T. Smith for pointing out these contemporary examples. On Echeverría's columns, see Rodríguez Munguía, La otra guerra secreta, pp. 161–165.

36. Jo Frazier, Leslie and Cohen, Deborah, “Defining the Space of Mexico ‘68: Heroic Masculinity in the Prison and ‘Women’ in the Streets,” Hispanic American Historical Review 83:4 (November 2003): pp. 617–660 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pensado, Rebel Mexico, p. 13.

37. See Vaughan, Portrait of a Young Painter; and Eric Zolov, Refried Elvis.

38. J. M. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, November 5, 1967, p. 3.

39. On elite socialization, see Camp, Intellectuals and the State.

40. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, November 5, 1967.

41. J. M. Tellezgirón, Para Control de Usted, El Día, March 15, 1968, p. 3.

42. Ibid.

43. Historians have attributed the historiographic centrality of 1968 to the writings of intellectuals politicized by the violence. See for example Braun, Herbert, “Protests of Engagement: Dignity, False Love, and Self-Love in Mexico during 1968,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39:3 (July 1997), pp. 512 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pensado, Rebel Mexico, p. 9. Louise E. Walker links the disproportionate focus on 1968 to scholars' politics. See Walker, Waking from the Dream, p. 12.

44. See for example Scherer García and Monsiváis, Parte de guerra, p. 205.

45. After Buendía's death, the FMB published an anthology of his conference presentations and speeches that provides insight into his ideological positioning. Most of the contributions come from the late 1970s forward, with a few from the mid 1960s. See Buendía, Ejercicio periodístico.

46. In the anthology of essays published to honor Buendía after his death, nearly every contributor mentioned his wardrobe choices. Elena Poniatowska, for example, admitted that Buendía's apparel colored her first impression of him. Many also commented upon Buendía's fascination with guns. A former student described Buendía as sticking out in the UNAM: “In a department of jeans, backpacks, and t-shirts, of theorists who hate the bourgeoisie, he drew attention, passing elegantly through the halls with those well-cut suits.” See Aguilar Camín et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, pp. 27, 63, 125.

47. Octavio Paz, in the Labyrinth of Solitude, identified challenges of wit or strength to be the cornerstone of Mexican masculinity. This is discussed in Irwin, Robert McKee, Mexican Masculinities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2003), p. xxiii Google Scholar.

48. In a letter to the procurador general, for example, Buendía requested personal financial information on both the Pemex director and the Mexico City mayor. Manuel Buendía to Oscar Flores Sánchez, May 14, 1981, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 2.

49. Jorge Díaz Serrano to Manuel Buendía, October 7, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

50. Manuel Buendía to Enrique Mendoza, October 14, 1980, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 2. Mendoza was assistant to Pemex Director Jorge Díaz Serrano.

51. Manuel Buendía to Carlos Hank González, October 4, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

52. Gun control was strictly enforced, and civilians required special permission from the Secretaría de Defensa Nacional (SDN) to carry a concealed firearm. The 1972 passage of the Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos amended Article 10 of the Mexican Constitution and imposed additional restrictions on civilians' legal access to guns. It placed firearm control under federal jurisdiction and authorized the creation of a national database of all registered handguns, which required citizens to notify the SDN any time authorized handguns left their control (for example, in the case that they were lost or stolen). Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos, Diario Oficial, vol. 310, no. 8, January 11, 1972, pp. 2–8, http://www.dof.gob.mx/index.php?year=1972&month=01&day=11, accessed on January 8, 2014.

53. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, p. 239.

54. Echeverría also permitted independent unions to organize, something unprecedented for the regime that drew its support from corporatist unions and organizations. Cabrera López, Una inquietud de amanecer, p. 37.

55. The event came to be known as the Corpus Christi massacre, named for the Catholic festival celebrated that day. After Echeverría's campaign began, Buendía took a three-year hiatus from journalism. It thus is difficult to gauge his reaction to the Corpus Christi attacks.

56. Aguilar Camín et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, p. 53. At the time, Buendía worked under Mexico City Mayor Alfonso Domínguez Martínez, the brother of Guillermo, who had secured the CFE job for him. Buendía's career path exemplified the way that camarillas, or interlocking political networks, advanced careers. See Camp, Intellectuals and the State, pp. 17–18.

57. Many regime insiders agreed that there were benefits to allowing critical views to be aired publicly. See for example Baños, Roberto Rodríguez, Libertad de expresión (Mexico: Secretaría de la Presidencia, Departamento Editorial, 1975)Google Scholar.

58. de la Rosa, Arno Burkholder, “El Olimpo fracturado: la dirección de Julio Scherer García en Excélsior (1968–1976),” Historia Mexicana 59:4 (April–June 2010), pp. 1369, 1381–1382Google Scholar.

59. Leñero, Vicente, Los periodistas (Mexico: Joaquín Mortiz, 1978), pp. 80–84.Google Scholar

60. For foreign coverage, see for example Alan Riding, “Mexican Editor Ousted by Rebels,” New York Times, July 9, 1976, p. 5; and Riding, “Paper in Mexico Ends Liberal Tone: Conservative View Appears After Ouster of Editor and 200 on Staff,” New York Times, July 10, 1976, p. 8. On protests in the Mexican press, see for example “Carta abierta al Presidente Luís Echeverría,” July 14, 1976, Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, DFS, Versión Pública Excélsior, leg. 3.

61. “President Echeverría Interest in Private Newspaper Chain,” May 19, 1976, Bureau of Interamerican Affairs, Mexico City Consulate, Department of State, https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976MEXICO06463_b.html, accessed April 14, 2015; and Aguilar Camín et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, p. 54.

62. López Portillo was the first PRI candidate to run unopposed in a presidential election, and low voter turnout suggested to many that popular support for the regime was receding. Servín, Elisa, La oposición política: otra cara del siglo XX mexicano (Mexico: CIDE, 2006), p. 65 Google Scholar.

63. Ley Federal de Organizaciones Políticas y Procesos Electorales, Diario Oficial 44, Segunda Sección, December 30, 1977, http://dof.gob.mx/index.php?year=1977&month=12&day=30, accessed January 8, 2014.

64. See for example Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, “El derecho a la información, esa vacilada,” Siempre!, November 9, 1977, pp. 24–25; “Derecho a la información, siempre y cuando,” Unomásuno, November 29, 1977, p. 5; Alberto Pérez Leyva, “JLP: el derecho a la información complementa la libertad de expresión,” El Nacional, January 5, 1978, p. 1; Carlos Ramírez, “Muchos medios han hecho de la comunicación un vehículo de penetración imperialista,” El Día, March 4, 1978, p. 3; and “El Estado es informar,” Personas, January 8, 1979, pp. 8–9.

65. López Portillo, José, Mis tiempos: biografía y testimonio político, vol. 2 (Mexico: Fernández Editores, 1988), p. 649.Google Scholar

66. These papers were Cuestión, El Periódico, Rotativo, and Unomásuno. CGCS, Bases estratégicas, vol. 3, p. 408. A number of newsmagazines were founded as well, including Nexos and Proceso.

67. See for example Rafael Carrillo Azpeitia, “Los criminales no se impondrán,” El Día, May 18, 1978, p. 4; and Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Plaza Pública, Cine Mundial, December 5, 1978, p. 1. On gossip and rumor, see Loaeza, Soledad, “La política del rumor: México, noviembre-diciembre de 1976,” Foro Internacional 17:4 (April–June 1977), pp. 557–586 Google Scholar.

68. Gregorio Ortega Molina, interview by author, digital voice recording, Mexico City, Mexico, November 22, 2011. Historian Pablo Piccato demonstrates that political columns first gained prominence in the late-nineteenth century when journalists acted as public arbiters of political squabbles. See Piccato, The Tyranny of Opinion, pp. 23–24.

69. Manuel Buendía, “Origen, estructura y proyección de la columna,” August 29, 1977, FMB, Ponencias, p. 12.

70. On global trends toward professionalization, see for example Daniel C. Hallin, The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 7–8. Sallie Hughes describes how Mexican newsrooms traditionally cultivated norms of behavior and senior colleagues informally trained novice reporters. Beginning in the 1980s, it became more common for young journalists to pursue college educations or other formal training. Hughes, Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).

71. Mexico's first professional journalism school was the Carlos Septién García Escuela de Periodismo, founded by Acción Católica de México in 1949. Buendía lectured there between 1953 and 1967. The Septién was followed by programs at UNAM (1951) and the Universidad Veracruzana (1954). See Ferreira, Leonardo, Centuries of Silence: The Story of Latin American Journalism (Westport: Praeger, 2006), pp. 194–195 Google Scholar. The 1970s witnessed the creation of journalism and communications programs in universities across the country, among them the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, the Universidad Autónoma de México-Xochimilco, and the Autónoma de Sinaloa. There were also new professional organizations, such as the Consejo Nacional para la Enseñanza y la Investigación de las Ciencias de la Comunicación, the Asociación Mexicana de Investigadores de la Comunicación, and the Asociación Nacional de Estudiantes de Comunicación. See CGCS, Bases estratégicas, vol. 14, pp. 2662–2707.

72. Buendía, “Origen, estructura y proyección de la columna,” p. 12.

73. See for example Manuel Buendía, Sol y Sombra, El Sol de México, January 3, 1977, p. 1.

74. Manuel Buendía, Sol y Sombra, El Sol de México, April 2, 1978, p. 5.

75. See for example Enrique del Val Blanco, Secretaría de Comercio to Raúl Cisneros Jiménez, Gerente de Proveeduría y Almacenes de Petróleos Mexicanos, June 21, 1979, FMB, Datos Personales, Binder 3; and Banpaís to Manuel Arévalo, August 1, 1980, FMB, Datos Personales, Binder 3. This challenges the idea that by printing leaks Latin American journalists served only political interests. See for example Waisbord, Silvio, Watchdog Journalism in South America: News, Accountability, and Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), chapt. 4Google Scholar.

76. Manuel Buendía, “Cuestionario para el Presidente José López Portillo,” July 16, 1978, FMB, Datos Personales, unidentified binder.

77. Ibid., p. 2.

78. Buendía first introduced this title in 1958 at La Prensa. It alluded to the president's private telephone, which he used to communicate with his cabinet members. Buendía revived the title to reference the confidentiality of his column's content. Martínez, Buendía en la trinchera, p. 23.

79. Buendía, Manuel, “La Red Privada que no se publicó; supernegocio intersecretarial con importación y renta de tractores,” Proceso, November 6, 1978, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

80. Ibid., p. 26.

81. Ibid.

82. Camín, Aguilar et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, p. 57.Google Scholar

83. Traditionally, scholars have viewed the 1976 Excélsior intervention as a watershed event that clearly separated high-quality journalism from the co-opted. See for example Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate, p. 67. This has also been part of the narrative that ousted Excélsior editors promoted about themselves. Vicente Leñero, Los periodistas.

84. Buendía, “La Red Privada que no se publicó,” pp. 26–27. For other articles that responded, see Aurora Berdejo Arvieu, “México, país de cementerios de chatarra agrícola,” Excélsior, November 15, 1978, p. 5; Hero Rodríguez Toro, “Tractores, ¿por qué, para qué, para quién?,” Proceso, December 11, 1978, pp. 34–35; Fernando Ortega P., “La Operación Tractor, aún no autorizada,” Proceso, December 25, 1978, p. 30; and Héctor Almazán, “La compra de tractores significa fuga de divisas y más desempleo en el campo,” Excélsior, December 27, 1978, p. 4.

85. Fuenteovejuna, “La semana pasada: tractores y alimentos,” Siempre!, November 22, 1978, p. 8. The author's pseudonym refers to the 1619 play by Spanish playwright Lope de Vega.

86. Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, “Negocio de tractores: todos ganan y el campesino pierde,” Siempre!, November 15, 1978, pp. 24–25.

87. Jose Luís Mejías, Los Intocables, Excélsior, November 22, 1978, p. 1.

88. Faustino Hernández to Regino Díaz Redondo, October 25, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9. Columnists also returned to the issue one year later. See for example José Luís Mejías, Los Intocables, Excélsior, November 6, 1979, pp. 1, 19.

89. López Portillo, Mis tiempos, p. 776.

90. Ibid., p. 787.

91. Ibid., p. 791.

92. Jose Luís Mejías described the Canal 11 program in his Los Intocables column in El Universal, December 7, 1978, pp. 1, 14. For articles on the press, see for example “‘Sindicatos negros' pretenden controlar el columnismo periodístico: Buendía,” El Sol de México, November 24, 1978, p. 9.

93. Attorney General Alanís Fuentes's speech is described in Mejías's column Los Intocables, Excélsior, December 7, 1978, p. 14.

94. Jacobo Zabludovsky, “¿El columnismo es calumnismo?” Siempre!, December 13, 1978, p. 15. The title played on the Spanish word calumnia (calumny) to suggest that columns were built upon defamation.

95. Ibid.

96. The quote regarding Zabludovsky's allegiances comes from Laveaga, Gabriela Soto, “Shadowing the Professional Class: Reporting Fictions in Doctors' Strikes,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19:1 (July 2013), p. 30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Federal intelligence records also point to the monetary connections that tied Zabludovsky to the regime. See Rodríguez Munguía, La otra guerra secreta, pp. 278, 330.

97. Zabludovsky, “El columnismo.” One week earlier, Buendía published his first article in Excélsior, providing additional and more pointed accusations against Toledo Corro. He underscored that the contributions came from “government sources.” Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, December 4, 1978, p. 21. He elaborated in his column the following day, December 5, 1978, pp. 4, 29.

98. Granados Chapa, Plaza Pública, December 5, 1978. In 1981, Cine Mundial had a declared circulation of 50,000 copies per issue. See CGCS, Bases estratégicas, vol. 3, p. 451.

99. Granados Chapa, Plaza Pública, December 5, 1978.

100. This framing of “being in on the game” comes from Performance Studies scholar Sharon Mazer. She uses it to discuss professional wrestling spectators, who know that the game is fixed. Mazer, Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), p. 35. I have also found Heather Levi's conceptual framing for lucha libre's “fixed ending” useful for conceptualizing the stakes and interests at play in political columns. Levi, The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 46–47.

101. Mejías's column was first published in El Universal, then moved to Excélsior at the end of 1978. Musacchio, Humberto, Granados Chapa: un periodista en contexto (Mexico: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 2010), p. 79 Google Scholar; and Loaeza, Soledad and Prud'homme, Jean-François, eds., Los grandes problemas de México, vol. 14 (Mexico: Colegio de México, 2010), section 11Google Scholar.

102. José Luís Mejías, Los Intocables, Excélsior, December 12, 1978, pp. 1, 10.

103. Ibid., p. 10. The word “someone” is bold in the original.

104. Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, May 10, 1979, p. 1.

105. Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, January 3, 1979, p. 1.

106. Ibid.

107. Camín, Aguilar et al., Los días de Manuel Buendía, pp. 184–185.Google Scholar

108. Manuel Buendía to Jesús Reyes Heroles, January 4, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

109. Ibid.

110. Ibid. The words “I have given proof” (he dado pruebas) are underlined in the original.

111. López Portillo, Mis tiempos, pp. 801–802.

112. Ibid., p. 801.

113. Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, January 22, 1979, p. 1.

114. Ibid.

115. Manuel Buendía to Fernando Garza, October 11, 1977, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9; and Manuel Buendía to Francisco Merino Rábago, December 22, 1977, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

116. Beverley, John, Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

117. Manuel Buendía to Padre Francisco Ramírez Meza, August 23, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

118. Ibid.

119. “Tercer Informe,” La República, September 1979, PRI Centro Nacional de Información Documental Adolfo López Mateos, Mexico City.

120. Manuel Buendía to Luis Javier Solana, October 5, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

121. Manuel Buendía to President José López Portillo, October 5, 1979, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

122. Ibid.

123. Buendía to Solana, October 5, 1979.

124. Ibid.

125. Comparing column drafts with the published versions reveals few, if any, cosmetic edits and no substantive changes. Buendía's correspondence with his editors underscored this point, as he complained only that they omitted the stylistic emphases he wished to add through underlining and bolding. See for example Manuel Buendía to Excélsior director Regino Díaz Redondo, February 27, 1981, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 2.

126. From the FMB, I collected a sampling of 28 letters from readers to Buendía. Of the 28 letters, 22 are dated between 1980 and 1983, during the height of Buendía's influence. This number does not include Buendía's letters in reply, nor his correspondence to public officials on readers' behalf. The readers' letters discussed here are representative of the general correspondence that Buendía saved. While he did save some letters from angry readers, the majority asked for favors or detailed abuses.

127. See for example Darling, Juanita, Latin America, Media, and Revolution: Communication in Modern Mesoamerica (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For arguments about elite communication and newspapers in Latin America, see for example Smith, Anne-Marie, A Forced Agreement: Acquiescence to Censorship in Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), p. 40 Google Scholar.

128. Humberto Flores to Manuel Buendía, January 23, 1978, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 9.

129. Ibid.

130. See for example Manuel Buendía, Red Privada, Excélsior, May 6, 1983, p. 1. In this column, he publicized his response to letters that can be found today in his archive. See Carolina A. Zendejas González to Manuel Buendía, April 22, 1983, FMB, Datos Personales, unidentified binder; and Samuel Díaz to Manuel Buendía, April 25, 1983, FMB, Datos Personales, unidentified binder.

131. See for example Piccato, “Murders of Nota Roja,” pp. 206–208.

132. Interestingly, radio host Francisco Huerta notes that print media continued to provide the point of departure for these discussions. See Huerta, Francisco, Crónica del periodismo civil: la voz del ciudadano (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1997), p. 17 Google Scholar.

133. A similar phenomenon is traced in Gilly, Adolfo, ed., Cartas a Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1989)Google Scholar. Omar Martínez notes, “Many readers saw Manuel Buendía as an effective intermediary.” Martínez, Manuel Buendía en la trinchera periodística, p. 38. The FMB reproduced some of these letters in its journal. Angel de la O., “Gracias por seguir en su trinchera periodística. Cartas a Red Privada,” Revista Mexicana de Comunicación 29 (May–June 1993), p. 10.

134. Luis Héctor Valdez to Manuel Buendía, February 9, 1981, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 2.

135. Ibid.

136. María Luisa Salcedo Cabrera to Manuel Buendía, May 30, 1983, FMB, Datos Personales, unidentified binder.

137. Ibid.

138. On the resolution of a noise complaint, see for example Manuel Buendía to Subsecretario de Gobernación Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, April 27, 1981, FMB, Correspondencia, Binder 2. For an example of Buendía writing to resolve a visa issue for Chilean exiles, see Manuel Buendía to Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, June 19, 1980, FMB, Datos Personales, Correspondencia, Binder 2. Another case, this one regarding obtaining a visa, is detailed in Héctor Benítez to Manuel Buendía, July 4, 1980, FMB, Datos Personales, Correspondencia, Binder 2. On securing a job for a reader, see Manuel Buendía to Secretario de Patrimonio y Fomento Industrial José Andrés Oteyza, March 4, 1980, FMB, Datos Personales, Correspondencia, Binder 2.

139. The description of Buendía's murder is based on Granados Chapa's account. Granados Chapa, Buendía, pp. 20–22.

140. See for example Fernando Ortega Pizarro, “Para la DEA, Zorrilla es clave para descifrar el narcotráfico en México,” Proceso, June 3, 1985, pp. 6–9.

141. Buendía began publishing his investigations into drug trafficking on May 4, 1984. See, Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, p. 239.

142. Zorrilla was released in 2009, after serving 19 years. Although many journalists have insinuated that Zorrilla did not act alone, few question his responsibility for the murder. See for example Blancornelas, José, En estado de alerta: periodistas y gobierno frente al narcotráfico (Mexico: Plaza y Janés, 2005), p. 45 Google Scholar.

143. Jorge Manrique and Ismael Rodríguez Jr., Masacre en el Río Tula, feature film, 85 minutes, directed by Ismael Rodríguez Jr. (Mexico, 1985), accessed at youtube.com, April 14, 2015.

144. Wilt, David, “Based on a True Story: Reality-Based Exploitation Cinema in Mexico,” in Latsploitation, Latin America, and Exploitation Cinema, Ruétalo, Victoria and Tierney, Dolores, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 165.Google Scholar

145. Manrique and Rodríguez, Masacre en el Río Tula.

146. For the most recent weighing in on this debate, see Gillingham and Smith, Dictablanda.

147. Padilla, Tanalís and Walker, Louise, “Into the Archives: History and Politics,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19:1 (2013), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

148. Given the limitations of space, this article could only gesture toward the fact that columnists' visions of democracy did not require gender equality and, despite their best efforts, were Mexico City-centric.