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It can almost be said that watchingmexico.com is still in a beta stage, because we haven't arrived at a final "look" of the site, and we haven't promoted it in any way, except for posting it on some Google Groups and Delphit Forum sites. We are trying for the simplicity of the DrudgeReport site, but with a major variation, of puting in at least the first paragraph or a synopsis , along with the headline and the media outlet link that published the original story in the Drudge architectur. The results give viewers a much more in-depth overview of the major issues on a single page than Drudge offers, and many visitors don' have to visit the same percentage of full links that one must do on Drudge. It must be admitted that we have yet to design a sie that looks as clean as Drudge's, however. Another issue still to be resoloved is whether to bring in people "on the ground" in Meixco as full patners, and these would certainly be Mexicans; or to push the site along with the vision of its creator Rick Kiel, with assistance of contributors from Mexico, from the rest of North America, and from journalists, academics and government officials from other regions as well. There is much to be said for both alternatives. Having a single force with a single vision may offer the better way to ensure the site grips tightly to its its original purpose. Spreading power among various experienced Mexican hands, including most of all Mexicans, |
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Rick Kiel - Publisher, WatchingMexico.com, 2009- Stints working abroard for these agencies and other clients included Japan, four months; Paris, six months; Cairo, three weeks; Mexico, two months; Peru, six weeks; Istanbul, four weeks; Ghana, four weeks; Taiwan, one month; Thailand; one month; China, two weeks; Geneva, six weeks; Morocco, two months; Spain, three months. Created and ran two successful businesses in partnership with wife, born in Mexico, now U.S. citizen. 1980s: Developed two of first video arcades in Mexico, importing by hand brains of games and working with Mexican engineer to construct machines in Mexico. Successful enought to live off that and bank UPI salary. 2004-09. Deeloped with wife Pacific Pearl Skin Care, based on Aztec skin cream still made by hand by Indians in Mexico, and entire range of skin products developed by wife from her training in natural medicine by relatives in her ancesteral villages (she was a pure Mexico City native enraptured by the capital, a "chilanga," for which I had to work for two years to extract her and convince her to move to States). Business sold. I know enough about Mexico to know that I can't know the Mexicans, even though I married a lovely one. Although I had spent a lot of time in Mexico, I arrived for my longest stint in January, 1982 to take over the direction of Mexico and Central America for UPI. I wanted to The Mexican political system had other ideas. Twice in my first year in Mexico, I was denounced as being a CIA agent on the front pages of two Mexican newspapers, including the government owned one, La Reforma, and the most influential, El Univeral, with calls to throw me out of the country. A friend who had deep ties in Mexico warned me about the coming assault. Mexico was in economic chaos at the time, which it was trying to hide. The government wanted to silence the infernal foreign media by taking on what it considered one of the weaker targets. UPI, in perpetual financial trouble despite its distinguished reputation in Latin America as the premier international news agency, was chosen. We received our first sign when agents for the Interior Ministry, the nasty internal enforcers in most Communist and developing world systems, showed up unannounced at our offices demanding to see our satellite dishes. Such technology had just arrived in Mexico, still a huge disk that was about eight feet in diameter and weighed a few hundred pounds. They were illegal in Mexico, just another way of the government, then in its sixth decade of uninterrupted rule, kept control of information. Rich Mexicans were buying dishes that they flagrantly put up on the roofs of their mansions, all protected by high cement walls, often topped by a layer of broken glass, or in oter strategic spots. |
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