The Supreme Court rejected an appeal initiated by a group of 15 journalists and academics against a constitutional provision that bans private individuals from buying electoral ad space on radio and TV, Milenio reports.
Only hours after a TV host was killed in northern Mexico, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported the disappearance of another journalist in Mexico, where in the last four years violence linked to drug trafficking has exploded.
In an unprecedented decision favoring transparency about the impact of drug trafficking, Mexico’s Federal Institute for Access to Information (IFAI) ordered the national intelligence service to furnish precise data on the number of people killed in clashes between authorities and organized crime groups, El Universal reports.
TV host José Luis Cerda of the Televisa network was found assassinated in the northern city of Monterrey—which in recent months has become the site of several attacks on media and aggression on the press by organized crime. He was kidnapped the day before by a group of armed men, Terra reports.
After the shutdown of two community radio stations in Mexico during the past two weeks, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) is calling on Mexican authorities to stop "criminalizing" community stations, reported Púlsar, the information agency for AMARC of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Nearly 50 Mexican media organizations signed an agreement Thursday about coverage of drug trafficking. The pact seeks to prevent excessive publication of violent images and stories and to guarantee the safety of journalists who expose themselves daily to the growing violence of organized crime, which has left more than 34,000 deaths in four years. See stories in English by the Associated Press and Reuters.
The killing of journalist Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, editor general of Zeta weekly, was allegedly ordered by Javier Arellano Félix, then leader of the Tijuana Cartel, the gang that controls the drug trade between the Mexican border city of the same name and the United States, the Committee Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports.
Amidst the “information blackout” generated by drug trafficking violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, social network sites have transformed into a fundamental information source for citizens, but they cannot replace Mexican journalism, said veteran Mexican journalist Jacinto Rodríguez, who spoke recently at the University of Texas at Austin about journalism and violence.
A group of civil society organizations is demanding greater safety and protection for journalists and human rights activists in Mexico, especially in the eastern and northern regions of the country where the most aggression occurs, reported the newspaper La Jornada.
A panel of three Mexican judges lifted a ban on the film "Presumed Guilty," a widely popular yet controversial documentary that exposes faults in the country’s justice system, the BBC said last week.
Gabino Cue, governor for the Mexican state of Oaxaca, has created a special prosecutor's office to re-open the investigations into the deaths of 26 people -- including New York journalist Bradley Will -- who were killed during protests against the government in 2006, reported Milenio and the Associated Press.
With Rosalía Orozco, former director of the journalism program at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico, taking over as the new director of the university’s Digital Journalism Training Center, the center is planning new courses and redesigning its website, according to the university and the News Entrepeneurs blog.