By Alejandro Martínez
The founder of Blog del Narco is a young woman living in northern Mexico, revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian and the website Texas Observer in the first interview with the administrator of the hugely popular blog.
"Who am I? I'm in my mid-20s, I live in northern Mexico, I'm a journalist. I'm a woman, I'm single, I have no children. And I love Mexico," said the blog's founder, who asked to be identified as "Lucy" for security reasons. According to the interview, many were surprised that the person behind the blog was a woman.
The only other communications with the website's administrators have been anonymous, including a brief exchange with the Knight Center in 2011 when they denounced attempts at cenorsing its work after the blog experienced technical difficulties.
Described by The Guardian's correspondent Rory Carroll as "must-read for authorities, drug gangs and ordinary people," the three-year-old blog presents articles and uncensored images of the drug violence in Mexico that few others have dared to publish. Melissa del Bosque of the Texas Observer called the blog "the most important website in Mexico."
The blog has brought her threats and a life of fear and daily uncertainty. Lucy said that a man and a woman who were tortured and hanged over a birdge in 2011 were contributors to the website. The killers even sent photos of the crime to Lucy.
"That was very hard, very painful," she said.
Lucy added that she will publish a book with a behind the scenes look at the blog's operation and the most gruesome violence of the drug wars in 2010. According to Carroll, the book will offer one of the most brutal and explicit perspectives on the drug war.
The book will be called "Dying for the Truth: Undercover Inside the Mexico's Violent Drug War" and will be released in Spanish and English on April 16.
Click here to read the full interview.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
