Luis Horacio Nájera, who won asylum in Canada two years ago, was honored last week in Toronto by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, for his reporting in the violent border city Ciudad Juárez. His Mexican colleague Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and three journalists from Cameroon were also awarded prizes, The Toronto Star reports.
The Chamber of Deputies passed a 2011 federal budget that includes more than $2 million for journalist life insurance, El Universal reports. The funds are set to go towards medical services, funeral costs, and damages.
Mexico’s Foundation for Freedom of Expression (Fundalex) and the Cádiz Press Association (APC) signed an agreement that will allow threatened Mexican journalists to seek refuge in Spain, EFE reports.
Several journalist and freedom of expression organizations criticized the press protection measures used by the authorities, which they said lack the resources and scope to attack the problem at its roots, El Diario de Juárez reports.
The Mexican authorities have presented a mechanism for protecting journalists to stop the attacks on reporters and the media that, in the last decade, have resulted in 65 killings, in addition to 12 disappearances in the past five years, reported CNN Mexico and La Jornada.
The escalation of violence and drug cartel influence in Mexico means that for foreign correspondents, reporting in Mexico is no different than covering a war, said Tracy Wilkinson, Mexico City bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. No one can be trusted, and "Baghdad rules" apply, she said. Get in, report, and get out.
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.
Media directors and journalists say they are skeptical of the the government’s newly announced protective measures against attacks from organized crime, EFE reports.
“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.