Forty-five journalists and representatives from media organizations from 20 countries gathered Sept. 17-18, 2010, in Austin, Texas, for the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas. The Forum is organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and the Open Society Foundations' programs for Latin America and the media.
After spending 2009 as a Nieman fellow at Harvard, Mexican-American journalist Alfredo Corchado realized he had no desire to continue putting his life on the line, covering Mexican drug cartels and violence. So when he returned to Mexico as bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, he felt "numb," he said, "separated from the story."
Media directors and journalists say they are skeptical of the the government’s newly announced protective measures against attacks from organized crime, EFE reports.
It’s indeed an honor and a privilege to be with you on this wonderful, certainly very memorable evening to accept the Elijah Lovejoy Award. It’s great to be in Maine in my favorite season of the year, fall, and particularly here in this gorgeous campus of Colby College.
“Never let fear become an editor,” said Peruvian Gustavo Gorriti at the award ceremony for the Cemex+FNPI New Journalism Prize in Monterrey, Mexico. The reporter, honored for his outstanding track record of investigative coverage, asked his fellow journalists to not let “intimidation undermine your work,” La Jornada and Milenio report.
In a meeting with representatives of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexico's President Felipe Calderón vowed to put in place by October a plan to protect journalists, similar to one in Colombia, and to launch legal reforms that would make killings of journalists a federal crime, reported the Associated Press and IAPA.
"In no way should anyone promote a truce or negotiate with criminals who are precisely the ones causing anxiety for the public, kidnapping, extorting and killing." With these words, Alejandro Poire, security spokesman for President Felipe Calderon, criticized the editorial in El Diario de Juárez in which the newspaper asked for a truce with organized crime after the killing of one of its photographers, reported the Associated Press and BBC.
Almost two years after crossing the border from Mexico, journalist Jorge Luis Aguirre was granted asylum in the United States, reported La Jornada. The editor of the news site LaPolaka.com had gone into exile after receiving threats when he went to the funeral of slain reporter Armando Rodríguez in Ciudad Juárez. At the time, Aguirre was warned that he was next.
After one of its photographers was killed by gunmen Thursday, Sept. 16, the Mexican newspaper Diario de Juárez, in an unprecedented move, published an extensive editorial on Sunday, Sept. 19, asking for a truce with drug cartels that would end the violence and, above all, stop the attacks against journalists in Mexico, reported CNN and the Associated Press. Newspaper editors also clarified that the call for peace does not mean the newspaper is giving up its journalistic work.
News that a 21-year-old photography intern was shot to death Thursday in Ciudad Juárez, and that his 18-year-old colleague was wounded, increased the sense of urgency for members of 40 journalist training and safety organizations who gathered in Austin, Texas, Friday and Saturday (Sept. 17–18) for the 8th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas. The annual gathering focuses this year on the coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
A photographer from the newspaper El Diario de Juárez was shot to death Thursday, Sept. 16, in a mall parking lot in Ciudad Juarez, ground zero for the drug trafficking violence in Mexico and just along the border with the United States, according to CNN. Another photographer, an intern at the newspaper, was seriously injured in the shoooting, according to the Associated Press.
After being arrested and threatened for reporting on a pedophile ring, Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho has been named the recipient of the PEN International Writer of Courage Prize, according to the Associated Press (AP). She will be honored at an awards presentation in London on Oct. 20.