Marcelo Tejero Ocampo, a 64-year-old radio journalist, was found dead the morning of Sept. 7 in his home in the town of Carmen in the state of Campeche, reported El Universal.
“Silence or Death in Mexico's Press” is the title of the just-released 2010 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The report is an accounting of the crisis in freedom of expression and access to information resulting from surging organized crime, violence and corruption.
One day after a shooting attack in Mazatlán, the newspaper Noroeste received new threatening phone calls, including messages demanding $15,000 in exchange for not blowing up the newspaper's building, reported EFE and Noroeste. Employees were evacuated because of the threats.
The outside of the newspaper Noroeste in the city of Mazatlán was attacked at dawn by an organized crime group just hours after threatening calls were made to the publication, reported the agency DPA and Noroeste.
The Mexican press has become a target for drug-related violence, prompting a company to promote its bullet-proof vests as a way of protecting members of the media, according to Clarín and news agencies.
A car bomb exploded in the early hours Friday, Aug, 27, at the doors of Mexican T.V. network Televisa in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, reported CNN, El Universal and Milenio. The explosion caused damages to the building, taking the channel off the air, but hurting no one. Another bomb went off at the local transit authority, added the new agency EFE.
Frank La Rue and Catalinta Botero, special rapporteurs for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, respectively, for freedom of expression, gave their preliminary observations from their official mission to Mexico, warning that the situation in the country was grave, reported BBC Mundo and El Universal.
The book "Cyber-journalism: Style Book for Cyber-journalists" (written in Spanish), will be presented this Friday (Aug. 27) at the College of Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in Mexico, according to Noticias Al Aire.
Alleged members of the organized crime group Los Zetas directly threatened the editors of La Jornada Zacatecas, Imagen, and El Diario NTR– all based in the state of Zacatecas– and demanded they put a letter denouncing the Mexican military on the front page of their newspapers, La Jornada reports.
Mexican authorities are investigating grenade attacks at the offices of media giant Televisa in the cities of Matamoros and Monterrey. The first incident happened in Matamoros the night of Saturday, Aug. 14, and no one was injured. In the case of Monterrey, the attack occurred at dawn on Sunday, slightly injuring two employees and damaging a car and nearby buildings, reported Agencia Reforma and La Crónica de Hoy.
Even as violence and kidnappings are pressuring mainstream Mexican media into silence, an anonymous blog that is less than six-months-old has become one of the main sources for news about the country's out-of-control drug war, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Milenio is reporting that the Mexican Public Safety Secretary announced the capture in Durango of five alleged members of the Sinaloa cartel suspected of being linked to the kidnapping of two television videographers and a reporter at the end of last July.