By Monica Medel It has been two and a half years since he crossed the border with his son after receiving death threats while covering the bloody war on drugs in Mexico. Since then, Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto has been waiting to find out if he will be granted political asylum in the […]
A T.V. crew for Milenio Televisión was attacked and restrained by a mob while working on an investigative report outside the ranch of the leader of an electricians union, in the town of Tetepango, north of Mexico City, reported local media.
In 2010, the Mexican media faced a spate of shootings, bombings, and kidnappings, but the new year has inaugurated a more subtle, but nonetheless effective, type of attack on the press: criminals and political groups stealing the identity of media companies to intimidate and spread false information, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) reports.
A new study on the state of press freedom in Mexico says the growing violence in Mexico is so brutal, it has made problems like censorship, lack of training, and regulation pale in comparison.
A judge in Mexico City ruled that Contralínea magazine be fined for publishing stories about contracts awarded by state-owned oil giant Pemex to private companies, stating the matter “is not of public interest,” SDP Noticias reports.
Early in the morning of Jan. 11, an armed group fired shots and threw a grenade at the offices of El Norte newspaper in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Milenio reports. No one was wounded in the attack, but the grenade broke windows and damaged the exterior of the building, El Universal adds.
Attackers threw at least two grenades at the offices of Televisa in the border city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila early in the morning of Jan. 8, El Universal reports.
The president of the government-run National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), Raúl Plascencia, said killings, disappearances, and kidnappings of media workers and activists will be a priority for the agency in 2011, Milenio reports.
Ciudad Juárez has been characterized as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. However, this border city also is home to more than 1 million people who are witnesses to positive actions and extraordinary acts that deserve to be told and recognized, according to a project started by the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States.
Pakistan became the most deadly country for journalists in 2010, with eight colleagues killed during the year in connection with their work. In a year when 42 journalists were killed worldwide, Honduras, Mexico and Iraq also ranked high, the Committee to Protect Journalists says in a year-end analysis. See more world news coverage of CPJ’s report.
Journalists always live in a state of tension with their work. To uncover the truth, journalists must develop not only a broad understanding of issues of public interest, but they must also have the good journalistic sense to be at the right place at the right time to cover a story. However, for journalists who work in zones of conflict, such journalistic competence can mean death.
Reuters photographer Jorge Silva was attacked and arrested by United Nations security and Mexican federal police when covering a protest of environmentalists at the United Nations Climate CHange Conference, COP-16, in Cancun, Mexico, reported El Diario de Yucatán and El Universal.