6 posts tagged “media”

This month's edition of Monocle, my favourite magazine, has an in-depth survey of Mexico (running at 36 pages) that features the best in current Mexican design, music, literature, business, media, hospitality and gastronomy.

It is very refreshing to see such a positive portrayal of the Mexican reality, as most international media tend to take the easy route, focusing only on what's wrong (which we already know) instead of what's right. Highly recommended!

I'm a big fan of Monocle magazine, and was quite amused when they talked about their main tips for the Mexican government in the year to come, which I quote below:

1. Streamline the tax system and make it easier for people to pay.
2. Stop police corruption by hiring better-educated cops and paying them more.
3. Create a third television network so the media is not in the hands of so few.

Even though all are relevant and rather urgent, the first one was the one that got me thinking.  One of the things that works especially well in Finland compared to Mexico is the taxation system. 

We might disagree on the amount of taxes you have to pay (that's a whole other discussion), but it is amazingly easy to pay them: you only give an estimate at the beginning of the year, get a tax card, give it to your employer and then taxes are discounted automatically during that fiscal year (which is the same as the calendar year). If your estimate was off the mark, you can check your pre-filled tax return the next May, and you may even get a refund the next December.  In 7 years I've never needed to ask any help from an accountant, and I've never had a problem.

No wonder Mexican tax payment levels are lower than Botswana's compared to GDP.  Can they try to improve this for the new year?

I came accross this archive of Life magazine photos.  I became a fan in my childhood since my parents had one or two books with pictures from the magazine (I was especially a fan of this one by Robert Capa).

I immediately made two searches: Mexico & Finland, naturally.  Most pictures of Mexico are of the 60's, around the time of the 1968 Olympics, whereas most pictures of Finland are of the 40's, especially of the Winter War.

One of the images that impacted me the most, however, was of Viipuri, which back then looked just like any other Finnish city.  I've been there a few years ago on my way to St. Petersburg, and let's say that there have been a few changes after it became part of Russia.

Hablando con un amigo un poco mayor, me decía que el problema actualmente es que estamos enfocados en los medios de comunicación sin ponernos realmente a pensar para qué fines los queremos. Uno no tiene mas que ver toda la basura que hay en la televisión, en la radio, en las revistas para darse cuenta que no sólo es cierto, si no que además muchos de nosotros la consumimos por gusto.

La próxima vez que veas un programa o leas una noticia, ponte a pensar qué es lo que te quieren decir.

I just realised that it's true, I don't watch that much TV anymore. My media consumption is quite diversified these days: blogs, podcasts, a couple of newspapers, books, music, movies, but not that much TV (even though I still watch football matches, CSI Miami and Lost from time to time). If I'm representative of a trend, then there's no surprise the old media moguls are getting in the bandwagon.

With 2006 being the year of Web 2.0, it was bound to happen. Head over to TIME.com to read the articles.