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Mexican TV launches 24-hour news network -- Brozo the clown and all

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But why the clown?

That was the question I kept asking myself as I watched the launch of a 24-hour news television station here in Mexico.

Foro TV, a product of the Mexican broadcasting conglomerate Televisa, promises to feature some of this country’s leading journalists and commentators, like Hector Aguilar Camin (co-author of ‘In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution: Contemporary Mexican History, 1910-1989’), Denise Dresser and Leo Zuckerman.

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But it opens the morning news with Brozo the clown. What does it say about the viewing audience -- or Televisa’s perception of us -- that we might want our news from a green-haired, red-nosed jokester?

Actually, Brozo has quite a history in Mexican current events, and it hasn’t always been a laughing matter. The costumed persona of journalist Victor Trujillo is known for an irreverence that often skewered the mighty and powerful. Embattled politicians all the way up to a president’s wife have chosen him to be the recipient of exclusive interviews or campaign promos.

A few years back, Brozo stunned a high-ranking city official who was appearing as a guest on a morning show the clown hosted at the time. Brozo aired a secret videotape showing the man stuffing a briefcase and then his pockets with thousands of dollars in alleged bribe money. The man’s career was toast, and the scandal may have cost his boss, then-Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the presidency in 2006.

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Brozo left morning television following the death of his wife in 2004 but is returning now to what he says will be a no-holds-barred format. Foro TV began broadcasting this week on subscription television and is only the second 24-hour news station in Mexico. The other, Milenio TV, opened in 2008. Televisa managers said they hope to distinguish themselves from Milenio with more analysis and debate.

In a recent news conference announcing the launch of Foro TV, Brozo told reporters his show would offer “everything orgasmically informative.”

--Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City

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