Spanish journalist Judith Torrea has spent 12 years working as an independent journalist. Last year she created the blog “Ciudad Juárez, en la sombra del narcotráfico” (Ciudad Juárez, in the shadow of narcotrafficking), where she reports on the crimes of drug mafias, stories that traditional media aren't always able to report. For this work, she has won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for Digital Journalism, El País reports. See this recent interview with Torrea in English by Salon.com.
María Isabella Cordero, former anchor of the morning news on Televisa, was shot to death Friday night in the city of Chihuahua, while leaving a restaurant parking lot, La Jornada and El Diario report. A friend who was in the car with her was also killed. See EFE's report in English.
Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) condemned the killing of newspaper columnist Enrique Villicaña Palomares and demanded investigation and punishment, La Jornada reports. Villicaña, a commentator for La Voz de Michoacán and former official in MIchoacán state, was found over the weekend in the western Mexican state, EFE and the Associated Press report.
Ramón Ángeles Zalpa, a correspondent for Cambio de Michoacán newspaper, was last seen Tuesday, April 6, when he left his home for a local university where he is also a professor, Article 19 reports.
Proceso magazine’s publication of an interview with a leading member of the Sinaloa cartel has raised questions about the media’s role in covering drug trafficking.
Twenty-six reporters—12 from Mexico and 14 from the United States— participated March 26-27 in the McCormick Foundation's Specialized Reporting Institute: Cross-border Coverage of U.S.–Mexico Drug Trafficking. The seminar took place in Austin and was organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Evaristo Pacheco Solís, a reporter for the weekly “Visión Informativa” (Informative Vision), was found shot to death Friday near the state capital, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, in southern Mexico, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports.
A worsening dispute between the Gulf drug cartel and its former security force, the Zetas, has resulted in 200 deaths in two weeks in the northeastern states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León and unprecedented censorship along Mexico’s border with Texas. The news blackout is backed by threats, kidnapping, and attacks against journalists, The Dallas Morning News reports.
The killings of three Mexican journalists in January alone, and the news that 15 people, mostly teenagers, were killed at a birthday party in Ciudad Juárez have called new international attention to Mexico’s drug-related violence, which is reported to have killed more than 1,000 people in the first 34 days of this year. Meanwhile, Mexican media workers brace for more attacks.
Twitter users in Mexico City have angered authorities by tweeting the locations of roadside Breathalyzer checkpoints, and kidnappers and drug traffickers are using Facebook and MySpace to communicate. Federal lawmakers have responded by proposing a bill to restrict social networking sites and to create a police force to monitor them, GlobalPost reports.
Jorge Ochoa Martinez, editor in chief of El Sol de La Costa newspaper, was assassinated with a gunshot to the face, becoming the third journalist killed in Mexico this year. His body was found in a car parked close to City Hall in Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports. Read this report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The vehicle of Adriana Aguirre San Millán was set ablaze outside the radio chain's offices in in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and a message left beside it warned that the same will happen to all other journalists, La Jornada and El Universal report. Aguirre owns the radio chain Organización Impulsora de Radio (OIR).