In Mexico this week it was all about the Top Gear issue. If you do not know what I am talking about, I will write about it briefly:
Last week, in BBC’s show Top Gear, the presentors were talking about Mastretta, a Mexican designed car. And they started joking about stereotipes, how these cars were just going to be “lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat”. Mexican food was also refered as being refried sick.
Many comments such as“Just imagine waking up and remembering you’re Mexican. Oh no!”, have become a big topic of discussion in the national blogosphere.
To learn more about the subject I would invite you to read my last Global Voices Post here.
As the week has passed by, we have been discussing this issue in several classes. And I have talked about it with friends and family. Some laugh about the situation, saying that this show is all about the jokes they make. But some others, friends that actually watch the show constantly, say that this time it was different, the jokes were “too much”.
A good topic on a discussion of “Freedom of Speech” ….is it right to let the presenters say these type of jokes on air? Even if they offend or make “racist” jokes?
If somebody interferes, then they are not letting others speak freely without censorship or limitation. Even if the speakers are not always right…
(Andrea Arzaba, February 2010)
Andrea Arzaba 
The local cable provider in Torreon (norte central Mexico) took BBC News off the air saying it is committed to offer only high quality contents and citing the Top Gear fracas. The BBC News channel does not show Top Gear and is, in my opinion, the highest-quality international news outlet.
This is pure retaliatory censorship.
The company is Megacable and it is present in othere Mexican cities.
I still can’t believe, a TV station like BBC? you know even my uni makes BBC as the role model for news TV.
the presenter can make BBC’s credibility worse. you know the rule ‘presenter is the last gate’ right? also, the presenter has hurt the journalism ethic by being very offensive to group of ppl. we should protest to BBC!