Oh yea I forgot, based on recent discussion I should state the following disclaimer always:
1) Por Esto always lies is poorly translated and should not be trusted at all especially if it says Scuba Mau.
As a journalist with 20 years of experience, including the past 13ish as a copyeditor (which, where I work, includes A LOT of verification of information written by reporters), I can assure you that newspapers and other medias are filled with errors. Most of them due to honest, human mistakes, even more so in medias that work on tight schedules (TV and radio news, websites and dailies).
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, most reporters are neither blatant liers nor intellectual superheroes who know it all and can afford to spend days and weeks on a specific story. As an employee of a media that covers a variety of topics, your daily (and sometimes hourly) assignments are only dictated by the news : whether it's a virus outbreak, dive accident, new tax law, zoning permit issues, or whatever, you have at best a few hours to gather facts and quotes from witnesses and officials and produce a story. Not much time to do research and counter verify what you've been told is true.
Now even if you get all your facts straight, you can always leave a typo (oooops! didn't mean to write 1 billion but 1 million… too late it's printed) or misquote a statement. It happens to everyone.
Then the story usually goes through a copyeditor, a job that has as many descriptions as there are newspapers and magazines ; usually involves one or several of the following tasks : layout, rewriting, caption and title writing, correcting spelling mistakes and typos, fact checking, etc, etc.
The copyeditor is human and in a rush too, so he/she can actually mess up a paper (and I don't know about Mexico, but there sure are quite a few copyeditors that should never be allowed to rewrite an article in France).
Then there are other people (section editor, editor in chief, even graphic designers…
each adding their "personal touch" to the original reporting… Sometimes catching a mistake before it's too late, sometimes adding one.
I could go on and on about the many reasons why I don't take what I read in newspapers as gospel, but it's off-topic. Nothing to do with Por Esto. Some of the articles I fact-check are based on the AFP (French equivalent to Reuters and AP), and they sure make lots of mistakes for such a prestigious wire service.
Online translators are awful (don't know what the professional software programs are worth). I'm fluent in 3 languages and I'm always amazed at the nonsense any online translator I've ever used produces.
On topics as technical and specific as the legalities of boat permits and ownership, the text of reference IMO is not a newstory, it would be the law (posted the law of navigation a few posts ago)… keeping in mind that this law MAY be applied differently locally, whether legally (specific written local laws that overrule it ; haven't been able to find any so far, but I just got off work, so haven't looked hard either) or informally. The latter would run smoothly as long as nothing happens, but the day sh!t hits the fan, it's unlikely officials would admit to having bent the rules. I am by no means saying this is what's happening here, or that the original Por Esto story is inaccurate. Just stating it as a possibility.
Bottom line being that I really don't know and refuse to pass judgement without knowing the actual FACTS.
For what it's worth, I'm not protecting Mau (I've never even met the guy) or claiming he runs a safe operation (never dove with them).
Again, I have no fact at this point to judge, just questions (red flags). But I try to abide to the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty", whether in a newspaper, on a TV show or an internet forum.
