Killing the news: Stories go untold as Latin American journalists die

by Tyler Bridges
Oct 30, 2018 in Specialized Topics

Since January, nine Mexican journalists have been murdered and another eight have been kidnapped and remain missing for a total of 17 dead and missing for the year. None of their cases have been solved in a country where warring drug traffickers have killed each other in battles over territory, have murdered policemen and politicians and have engaged in bloody shootouts with government troops sent to restore order. In just the past five years, drug-related violence has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Mexican citizens and an estimated 61 journalists.

Intimidated, and for good reason, many newspapers throughout Mexico have stopped reporting on drug violence except for publishing official press releases. Newspapers and TV stations in Ciudad Juárez and other cities on the U.S. border have fully withdrawn. They simply no longer report drug shootouts that leave police, drug traffickers and ordinary citizens dead in the streets. They publish some stories demanded by the narcos, as they are called in Spanish.

Read the full reporter analysis from the Project Against Impunity, one of the major programs of the Inter American Press Association, a Miami-based group of newspaper publishers and editors throughout the Americas.