Crises as catalysts of foreign reporting on Latin America: An evaluation of the German press over 15 years

Abstract

This article investigates whether, in light of the political and economic changes that occurred in the region in the last decades, crises are still a catalyst for foreign reporting on Latin America. The study comprises 3,831 articles related to the 20 Latin American countries published from 2000 to 2014 in the German press: the dailies Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the political magazine Der Spiegel and the alternative newspaper tageszeitung. The author found that more than half of the coverage on the continent depicted some sort of crisis, especially non-violent ones and controversies (36.4%). However, the portrayal of crises is sectorial. The ‘invisible’ Central American states (Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala and El Salvador) and the countries against the Washington Consensus (Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela) exhibit a higher coefficient of crisis intensity. Colombia, despite considerable press attention, has the most crisis-centred reporting due to the conflict with FARC.