The Mexican Episcopal Conference issued on August 13, 2026 a solemn message titled “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” citing the verse from John 8:32, in which it addresses the public consultation on the General Guidelines for the Protection of Audience Rights opened by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. Signed by the Bishop of Cuernavaca and President of the Episcopal Conference, Ramón Castro Castro, together with the Auxiliary Bishop of Mexico and Secretary General, Héctor M. Pérez Villarreal, the text comes at a time of intense public debate. The consultation, which runs from July 27 to August 21, 2026, was opened after President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government presented the draft during morning press conferences through legal counsel Luisa María Alcalde. Since then, the president has repeatedly insisted that there is no censorship nor any intention to sanction journalistic content, but rather to guarantee the constitutional rights of audiences through codes of ethics, public defenders, and clear complaint mechanisms.
The draft guidelines establish obligations for open and pay radio and television concessionaires, as well as for programmers, both commercial and public or social. These include the obligation to publish a code of ethics, designate at least one audience defender who acts with impartiality and independence, explicitly distinguish news information from opinion and advertising through bumpers, banners, or mentions, guarantee the right of reply, and refrain from disseminating false or decontextualized information or historical facts presented as current.
Sanctions, which may reach up to one percent of the concessionaire’s annual revenue, are considered a last resort when the defender’s recommendations are not addressed or formal obligations are not met. The government has emphasized that the corresponding article expressly prohibits any form of prior censorship and that the authority’s intervention is limited to procedural matters. Sheinbaum has reiterated that the goal is self-regulation and that the audience’s right to receive plural and timely information is a constitutional principle recognized for years.
The Mexican Episcopal Conference sincerely acknowledges the purpose inspiring the draft and values specific elements such as the prohibition of prior censorship, non-discrimination on religious grounds, the right to content reflecting the Nation’s pluralism, and special protection for vulnerable groups against manipulation or content that degrades human dignity. However, the bishops warn that precisely because the intended good is real, how it is achieved matters. The principle that must be safeguarded with special emphasis, they affirm, is that freedom of expression is a fundamental pillar of the democratic order. No administrative authority can become the arbiter of truth, particularly regarding ideas, opinions, convictions, or beliefs, whether religious or not. The veracity legitimately required of journalistic information is a duty of diligence: cross-checking sources, verifying data, distinguishing fact from opinion, and correcting errors when necessary. This requirement differs from the truth of convictions, which does not admit administrative verification or sanction, and whose judgment by the State would itself be incompatible with freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. Truth is not decreed; it is sought and recognized in free and plural debate.
The ecclesial message notes that the administrative classification of information as “false” or “decontextualized,” without clearly defining the limits of such concepts and coupled with potential sanctions, risks conditioning freedom of expression to official criteria of truthfulness. Such a mechanism is incompatible with the democratic system protected by Articles 6 and 7 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, with Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, with various precedents of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, and with the inter-American legal framework on the right to freedom of expression. In a context where religious associations cannot own or manage radio and television concessions, the pluralism invoked by the guidelines must also include that of religious convictions and beliefs. The safeguard of that pluralism must be stated as a general principle for the benefit of all confessions and of those who profess none, so that they are not subject to administrative judgments of truthfulness or mandatory labels.
Another component that deserves special attention, according to the episcopate, is the protection of editorial independence. The draft empowers the authority to review and validate the media’s codes of ethics—documents that express their identity, mission, and values—and to review, as a last resort, the decisions of audience defenders, even ordering the rectification or modification of content. Ethical self-regulation is a good that flourishes in freedom; permanently subjected to official validation, it ceases to be self-regulation. This observation goes to the heart of the controversy: the risk that a mechanism conceived to protect audiences may, in practice, become an instrument of permanent oversight over the media’s editorial decisions.
Beyond the bishops’ statement, the debate has gathered academic, legal, and industry voices that coincide in pointing out risks of overregulation. Journalist and academic Raúl Trejo Delarbre has maintained that the guidelines do not imply prior censorship, but they do overreach by incorporating concepts such as false or decontextualized information that the law does not contemplate in that form and by granting the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission review powers that the statute does not expressly confer. The law speaks of professional truthful information, but does not authorize an administrative authority to become the judge of the falsity or plausibility of news. Specialists such as Irene Levy have warned that the draft creates powers, procedures, and sanctioning consequences that exceed what is provided for in current legislation, particularly by allowing the CRT to review, confirm, modify, or revoke the determinations of audience defenders. Organizations dedicated to freedom of expression have alerted to the possible chilling effect: media outlets could begin to self-censor to avoid administrative proceedings or sanctions, especially when the regulatory authority depends on the Executive Branch.
The National Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CRT) initially expressed objections regarding ambiguity, discretion, and possible subordination of the defenders. After dialogues with the CRT, it moderated its concerns and acknowledged progress: the regulator’s intervention would be limited to procedural matters at the request of whoever files a prior complaint with the medium, without entering into editorial content. President Sheinbaum celebrated this rapprochement as a democratic advance. In the opposite direction, the National Human Rights Commission supported the draft, rejected accusations of censorship, and recalled that freedom of expression does not equate to the right to disseminate lies or misrepresentations presented as absolute truths. Early analyses of the comments received in the consultation showed a critical majority, although the authority has reported thousands of participations and has insisted that the process is open and transparent.
The episcopal message does not stop at the warning. It emphatically exhorts the lay faithful, Catholic communicators, universities and educational institutions, professional associations, civil society organizations, and all citizens to participate in the consultation before August 21, 2026. Citizen participation is not a mere procedural step in the regulatory process, but an exercise of co-responsibility for the common good. A democracy is strengthened when citizens participate, not when they remain silent. It reminds Mexico’s communicators that their profession is more than a job: those who inform with honesty sustain the common life of a country; those who do so with fear or in the service of interests alien to the truth weaken it. Pope Leo XIV has expressed the Church’s solidarity with journalists imprisoned for attempting to tell the truth and has called for safeguarding the precious good of freedom of expression and the press, because only informed peoples can decide in freedom. To the authorities and concessionaires, the Mexican Episcopal Conference expresses its willingness for frank and constructive dialogue and places its educational and pastoral network at their disposal to collaborate in media education and literacy programs, in the formation of critical audiences, and in the dissemination of mechanisms for the defense of their rights. The right to truthful information is guaranteed both by regulating supply and by forming the discernment of those who receive it.
Finally, the message addresses those who listen and watch. The right to truthful information carries with it a responsibility. No regulation will exempt one from the duty to discern what is received, to verify before sharing, and not to propagate what harms one’s neighbor’s reputation or sows confusion. Slander spread on social media does as much harm as that spread over the air. The first defense of truth is not a regulation; it is a formed conscience.
In closing, the bishops recall the Guadalupian event: the Word became understandable when Saint Mary of Guadalupe spoke to Juan Diego in his own language, with her images and her music; she did not correct him, but listened to him and sent him to speak before those in authority. There lies the model of all true communication: that which respects the recipient to the point of speaking in his language and that which trusts him to the point of entrusting him with a message. To her, Mother of Hope and Star of Evangelization, they commend this consultation process and those who participate in it, so that in Mexico the word, human and divine, may always be spoken and heard in freedom.
The final text of the guidelines will be known after the close of the consultation. What is at stake is not only a set of technical rules on radio and television, but the delicate balance between the legitimate right of audiences to responsible content and the democratic principle that the State cannot become the arbiter of the truth of opinions and convictions. In that balance, to a large extent, lies the quality of public debate and the freedom of those who communicate and those who listen.