Although Mexico is known as one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, the threat to media professionals in the country is not just physical. In many cases, the enemies of freedom of expression and of the press resort not to arms, but to the courts, in an attempt to silence journalistic coverage that goes against their interests.
Latin American newsrooms won four big honors at the 2018 Online Journalism Awards, prestigious prizes recognizing excellent digital journalism.
The Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists will run out of funding at the end of September, mobilizing press advocates to demand the federal government guarantee resources for the program to continue.
The association Periodistas Desplazados Mexico (Displaced Journalists Mexico) is asking the new government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to politically and legally recognize journalists and media workers who are victims of forced internal displacement caused by violence in the country in the last decade.
Another journalist has been killed in Quintana Roo, the third media professional to be murdered in the Mexican state in the past two months. Motives behind his death are still unclear, but journalists and media organizations are calling on authorities to explore all possible lines of investigation.
The lack of commitment on the part of the federal and state prosecutors of Mexico and other authorities to follow the recommendations given by the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH, for its initials in Spanish) is the reason for the "prevailing impunity" in attacks against journalists, the human rights organization said.
ProPublica and its media allies in Latin America and the U.S. have asked the public to submit information about detained immigrants through online forms that feed a database shared with participating media.
Mexican reporter Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, who is seeking asylum in the U.S., was released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in El Paso on the afternoon of July 26 after seven months in detention.
Rubén Pat Caiuch, director of Semanario Playa News, was shot and killed in the early morning of July 24 outside a bar in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.
A photojournalist from newspaper Reforma, Alejandro Mendoza, and Azteca News reporter Isidro Corro said they were assaulted by agents of the Ministry of Public Security (SSP) during the early morning hours of July 8 while covering a police operation in Colonia Doctores, in Mexico City, according to El Universal.
Mexican journalist Abraham Torres reported he was denied entry at Simon Bolivar International Airport while on his way to a journalism festival hosted by digital news site Efecto Cocuyo.
Mexico held historic elections on July 1 with a landslide victory from Andrés Manuel López Obrador. And in an electoral season of unprecedented violence against politicians and political candidates, the press was also a target.