Mexico to hire PR firms to scrub drug war image

[Elmore Furth]

Image is everything.

MEXICO CITY, June 16, 2010 (Reuters) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon is launching a global public relations campaign to try to improve his country's image and neutralize coverage of the violent drug war scaring away tourists and foreign investors.

The strategy has so far failed to curb violence and more than 23,000 people have died in drug violence over the past 3-1/2 years. Daily images of gruesome decapitations, charred and tortured bodies hung from bridges and brazen daytime shootouts are commonplace on the front pages of newspapers and evening news broadcasts.

Calderon, a strong-willed conservative, says he is turning to private advertising firms to launch an international image improvement campaign to show the world another, less violent side of Mexico, a country that depends on some 20 million tourists a year to boost its public finances.

The campaign, whose cost and other details were not disclosed, will be run out of Mexico's tourism ministry.


Mexico to hire PR firms to scrub drug war image