Mexican reporters risk their lives covering the news
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‘In many ways, Mexico’s democratic evolution has afforded the news media greater freedom than at any time in modern history. But at the same time, reporters are working on a battlefield: Mexico is considered the most dangerous Latin American nation in which to be a journalist, and one of the riskiest in the world,’ writes the L.A. Times’ Ken Ellingwood in this report.
‘ ‘Every day it’s more difficult to practice journalism in Mexico, especially from the middle of a war between the government and narcos,’ said Ricardo Ravelo, a reporter at the national weekly magazine Proceso who covers drug trafficking. ‘We are in a no-man’s land.’ ‘
‘Besides the killings and disappearances of reporters, criminal gangs have attacked newspaper offices with high-powered rifles and grenades. Anonymous threats are commonplace. Reporters have been seized, held for hours and beaten.’
Read on....
-- Reed Johnson in Los Angeles
Photo: On Alert: A federal agent guards the office of the newspaper El Mañana in Nuevo Laredo in 2006 after an attack by men wielding assault rifles and grenades. Ricardo Segovia / Associated Press
