This piece was written for the launch of HuffPost Mexico on September 1st.
Today we're excited to announce the launch of HuffPost Mexico. Our site will be the 15th international edition of the Huffington Post, which was co-founded by Arianna Huffington in 2005 and was the first digital site to win a Pulitzer Prize. The Huffington Post has a global audience of 180 million people, and more than 100,000 people have blogged for the site around the world. These numbers are impressive, but what excites me most is not the opportunity to look out into the world, but rather to look within, and to start a conversation in Mexico that reaches all Mexicans.
Mexico is more than ready. The challenges currently facing Mexico's media industry and the turmoil our country is experiencing offer us opportunities, as all crises do. We must learn to identify these opportunities and to take advantage of them.
I've always thought that an informed society is a society that makes better decisions. The arrival of this publication in Mexico means that a prominent global platform will shed light on issues that Mexicans care about, and ones that we should care about. The stories we aim to publish, which will delve into such topics as politics, the environment, women's empowerment, welfare, health and lifestyle, should enable all Mexicans to live their lives better, on the personal, familial, and societal levels.
For me, HuffPost Mexico is a challenge, and a responsibility to promote the change we are seeking.
Sixty percent of Mexico's population is online. The time is now for us Mexicans to reinvent ourselves.
"I feel that Mexico wants to change, but it doesn't know how to go about it," I said in conversations I had with HuffPost's Executive International Editor, Nicholas Sabloff and with Arianna herself.
On this platform, we are committed to offering stories that inform, entertain, inspire and empower. Audiences, in turn, have the moral duty to keep themselves informed. In Mexico, change won't come from the government. The potential for change lies within us. It lies in what the media can present, and in the questions and demands that people pose. Most of all, the possibility for change lies in the action we can take.
What's the point of a deluge of social media insults or complaints if that's as far as we're wiling to go? More often than not, we are not even familiar with the details of the issue we're heatedly debating.
In the internet era, we have two options: We can keep obsessing over likes and followers and scroll for hours on our cellphone screens, or we can use our time to produce and consume stories of substance. It's been years since we could truly blame Televisa; Technology has disrupted the previously all-powerful media institution. Now, there are alternatives.
Huffpost Mexico will provide an alternative to the ridiculous and extreme nature of the national press. It will be built on freedom of expression, and its international character will set it apart. Because our platform will target society at large rather than government officials, experts or intellectuals, HuffPost Mexico will be able to adopt a tone at once informational and conversational as we delve into complex subjects, such as the teachers' strikes.
Huffpost Mexico will also take on in-depth investigations to understand such issues as the role of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the country. We aim to inspire our audience to go beyond questions like "Who's ahead in the polls for the 2018 elections?"
For me, HuffPost is a challenge and a responsibility to bring about the change we seek in Mexico. The kind of journalism that we aim to produce here is not one that simply reports the facts, however. It is the kind of journalism that calls for finding solutions amidst troubling times. The result, hopefully, will be a kind of journalism that instigates new public policies and inculcates (though does not impose) ideas and energy for everyone who wants to be an agent of change in Mexico.
Let this be a great adventure in our lives.
Welcome to HuffPost Mexico, and thank you for reading.