Following the call of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to take stricter measures to end impunity in violence against journalists, the president of that country, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised to make the issue one of the priorities of what remains of his administration.
Mexico is one of the deadliest countries to practice journalism. This has been repeated in recent years by different organizations that defend freedom of the press both in the country and abroad.
Journalists from both sides of the border tackled modernization, fake news and corruption during the Bridging the Border seminar the day before the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) on Thursday, April 20.
Maximino Rodríguez Palacios, also known as Max Rodríguez, is the fourth journalist killed in Mexico in less than two months.
With 11 journalists killed in Mexico, 2016 became the most violent year for the press since 2000, according to the annual report “Freedoms in Resistance” made by Article 19 Mexico.
Journalists from Mexico and Cuba took home Ortega y Gasset journalism awards from Spanish newspaper El País announced on April 6. The 2017 edition was the 34th year of the award. The ceremony will be on May 11 in Madrid, and will crown the best reports in the Spanish language produced last year.
Mexican daily newspaper Norte of Ciudad Juárez took down its website Norte Digital on the night of April 4, two days after publishing a farewell editorial in its last printed edition. Both the digital and print versions of the newspaper were closed by director, Óscar Cantú Murguía due to a lack of security for the practice of journalism in the country.
The identification of two of three suspects in the assassination of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach Velducea have been confirmed, said César Augusto Peniche, district attorney general of the state of Chihuahua, according to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada.
The “barrage” of censorship and pressure to which Mexican journalists have been exposed in recent years reminds reporter Alexandra Xanic of the 1990s. The dependence of the media on official advertising, reductions in newsrooms and the search by media outlets to “fill spaces,” mean that investigative journalism is increasingly forgotten, and the little that is done fails to have the impact it should.
Journalist Miroslava Breach Velducea, 54, was killed on the morning of March 23 after receiving at least four shots to the head. The journalist was leaving her home in the capital city of Chihuahua state and getting into her vehicle when a group of strangers approached her and began shooting, according to newspaper Norte in Ciudad Juárez.
Another journalist has been killed in Veracruz, Mexico.
Nevertheless, his comedy, which is based on commentary of news, culture and politics, is consumed by hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans.