Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jan 2007
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company
Column: Editorial Observer
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Tina Rosenberg
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico

WHERE COVERING A WEDDING CAN BRING DEATH THREATS

The north of Mexico is under siege. Gang wars for control of the drug 
market and cocaine routes to the United States took at least 2,000 
lives in Mexico last year, most of them in border states. Serious 
journalism is also a victim.

Working as a reporter has become a very dangerous job in Mexico. 
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, seven Mexican 
reporters were killed last year, their work the confirmed or 
suspected reason. This count moves Mexico past Colombia -- a country 
where journalists vanish with terrifying regularity.

Mexico's count is still much lower than Iraq's record of 39 murders 
in 2006. But it is high enough to accomplish what the traffickers 
want. Widespread intimidation has brought coverage of drug 
trafficking virtually to a halt.

Among the most prominent dead are Roberto Javier Mora Garcia, the 
highly respected editor of El Manana in the border town of Nuevo 
Laredo, who was stabbed to death in March 2004. Alfredo Jimenez Mota, 
the trafficking expert at El Imparcial in Hermosillo, Sonora, has 
been missing since April 2005. Last year, Enrique Perea Quintanilla, 
editor of the Chihuahua magazine Dos Caras, Una Verdad, which 
reported on unsolved crimes, was killed.

At respected newspapers across the north, even innocuous decisions -- 
publishing photos of traffickers at a wedding, for example -- can 
bring death threats. Reporters have been kidnapped briefly by drug 
gangs as a warning. The drug cartels pay off other reporters, who 
warn colleagues not to touch certain subjects or print certain names 
or pictures.

Newspapers, many of which depend heavily on government advertising, 
also face financial pressure from local officials and business 
leaders to tamp down the reporting. Some officials are on the take; 
others simply do not want bad news to scare away business and 
tourism. Northern Mexico is rife with violence, fear and corruption 
- -- except in its newspapers. "Before, we focused on writing good 
stories that went beyond official statements on organized crime and 
drug trafficking," said the editor of one northern paper. "Now we are 
worried about taking care of ourselves."

Shortly after Mr. Jimenez Mota disappeared, El Imparcial announced 
that conditions did not permit investigations into drug trafficking, 
and it would no longer do them. Nor would papers owned by the same 
family in Tijuana and Mexicali. El Manana stopped investigating 
organized crime after Mr. Mora Garcia's death. Then last February, 
gunmen broke into the newspaper, firing shots and throwing a grenade, 
seriously wounding one reporter. The shooting followed a high-profile 
international conference on journalism in Nuevo Laredo. After the 
attack, the paper announced that it was no longer going to publish 
anything about drug trafficking.

At most papers today, coverage of organized crime is limited to 
printing unsigned stories quoting official police information after a 
killing, and each killing is treated as an isolated event. Some will 
not even do this, preferring complete silence.

Last February, Vicente Fox, the president then, appointed a special 
federal prosecutor to investigate crimes against journalists. This 
was a needed statement of support, and a way to take such cases out 
of the hands of state courts, where traffickers enjoy impunity. But 
the prosecutor's resources and mandate are limited. He has not yet 
brought an indictment.

Given the dangers, the media silence is understandable, especially 
when corruption is so rampant that there is no reason to expect 
change. "You have to ask yourself," said the editor, "is it worth it?"

In Colombia, where for decades journalists have faced threats from 
cocaine gangs and armed groups on the left and right, reporters 
sometimes are able to do real journalism by banding together. Mexico 
tried that -- for a while.

In August 2005, the Inter-American Press Association -- a nonprofit 
group that encourages good journalism in Latin America -- convened a 
meeting of about 30 border editors and publishers in Hermosillo.

They organized a group of journalists from different papers to work 
together on investigations. Their first story -- on the disappearance 
of Mr. Jimenez Mota -- was published and broadcast on the same day by 
70 different outlets across Mexico -- with no reporters' names attached.

But the effort has since foundered without sufficient money and 
leadership from the large papers in Mexico City and from 
international groups. Collaboration would also require a level of 
trust and a culture of investigative reporting very scarce in Mexico. 
In the north, it grows more rare by the day. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake