• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Why Doesn’t the Mexican Government Protect Journalists?

Kris Kodrich by Kris Kodrich
09/25/19
in Opinion
Mexican police are looking into the death of a journalist, who was found stabbed to death

Mexican police are looking into the death of a journalist, who was found stabbed to death. Photo: Yuri Cortez, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

With all the conflict in the world in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, it’s surprising and disturbing that the most lethal place to be a journalist in 2019 is Mexico.

At least ten journalists have been killed in the Latin American country this year, according to media watchdog organizations Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some organizations place the number even higher. The next most deadly countries for reporters are Afghanistan and Somalia with three killings each.

Just this summer, five journalists have been murdered in Mexico. On August 24, the 42-year-old Nevith Condés Jaramillo became the latest victim. Found stabbed to death in Tejupilco in the State of Mexico, Condés Jaramillo had run a local news website.

If Mexico is indeed a democracy, which it claims to be, then a free press is vital. Free media help citizens understand whether or not a society is functioning properly. Is the economy in good shape? Is the health care system serving the sick and the healthy? Is the justice system working for all? Are politicians being held accountable? What are the political, economic, and cultural elites up to?

As killings continue to rise, the Mexican government doesn’t seem to want to make the safety of journalists a priority.

Impunity for Killing Journalists

In June, at the start of the deadly summer, the Committee to Protect Journalists called attention to the impunity for murdering journalists during a press freedom summit in Mexico City.

“Let me be clear,” said Executive Director Joel Simon. “The level of violence and impunity against Mexican journalists represents a crisis for this country, and a direct threat to Mexico’s democracy.” He called on the Mexican president to address impunity and violence against the press.

When journalists are not able to report without censorship, without fear of imprisonment or repression, without threats and violence, there is no real democracy. In its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. says people have the right to freedom of opinion and expression and may “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

While the safety and security of journalists in Mexico have long been a problem, there are unfortunately no signs of improvement.

Dangers for Mexican Journalists

In my international mass communication course at Colorado State University, I always devote a day to talk about the dangers for journalists in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Sadly, this semester, I’ve had to add substantially to my lecture notes and slides for that upcoming discussion.

I thought about the plight of journalists in Mexico over the summer on a family vacation, as I relaxed on the beach in Playa del Carmen and walked around the incredible El Castillo pyramid at the wondrous pre-Columbian Mayan city of Chichen Itza. Although the Riviera Maya is a relatively safe tourist zone along the Caribbean coast, the occasional passing truckload of heavily armed police would remind me of the stories of violence against journalists in Mexico we often hear about in the United States.

Cameras and photos of journalists killed across Mexico are placed on the ground during a protest on May 15, 2017, in Mexico City
Since 2000, 131 journalists have been killed in Mexico. Photo: Yuri Cortez, AFP

Recently in class, we talked about cultural privileges in the United States that not everyone around the world enjoys. One of those is a free press. While U.S. journalists have seen an increase in verbal and physical attacks in the past two years, we thankfully still have free media. I’m not sure I can say the same about our southern neighbors.

A few years back, one of my graduate students did her master’s thesis on how the El Paso Times was covering violence in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border. We talked about the safety issues she would encounter when joining the American journalists into Ciudad Juárez. Afterward, she explained that the reporters didn’t linger – they talked to whomever they needed to talk with and got back quickly to El Paso.

These days, I don’t think I’d recommend similar research in Juárez. And that’s a shame because we all need to draw attention to what’s going on in Mexico and try to get our political leaders to pressure the Mexican government to protect journalists.

Society’s Eyes and Ears

We can support the efforts of press watchdog groups. News media should continue to focus attention on the issue of journalists under duress around the world. Governments around the world need to be held accountable for atrocities against anyone, but especially journalists because they are a society’s eyes and ears.

jamal khashoggi
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Photo: AFP

For example, the world now knows much more about the government in Saudi Arabia after worldwide attention focused on the killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. Posthumously, Khashoggi, along with other killed or imprisoned journalists, was named Time magazine’s person of the year.

Just last week, as U.S. officials accuse Iran of being behind the attack on Saudi oil facilities and consider retaliatory actions against the country, the Khashoggi assassination has again been in the news. Some argue that the U.S. military should not defend a government responsible for such a blatant murder of a journalist.

Fake News

Regarding Mexico, it seems like news stories about the dangers to journalists have sadly become more frequent. On a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I listened to NPR’s Weekend Edition. Host Scott Simon talked with Javier Garza, a Mexican journalist and security expert for journalists. He, too, spoke about the recent killing of reporter Nevith Condés Jaramillo.

Garza explained that “…the journalists that are being targeted in Mexico are local journalists doing the work that no other news organization, the large news organizations are not doing, which is expose corruption, expose crime, expose government negligence in the localities and cities and towns across Mexico, and we are being deprived of those voices.”

Many Mexican journalists are leaving home as violence against them increases: https://t.co/ZVrc4WrsAI via @Pajaropolitico

The government has taken no new steps to protect them, despite a rising death toll: https://t.co/jVXaOJr5kj

— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) September 18, 2019

Garza said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador talked about the importance of a free press while campaigning, but that the federal government has done little to protect journalists or to prosecute those responsible for killing them. “Each attack is motivated by the fact that the previous one was never punished, was never even prosecuted.”

He also noted that the Mexican president has criticized journalists and their work as “fake news” if their stories are critical of the government or expose governmental corruption – similar to the criticisms of President Donald J. Trump makes to media in the United States.

Media in the US

On the Reporters without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom Index, the United States dropped three places from the previous year to 48 out of 180 ranked countries, just behind Romania, Chile, and Tonga. Mexico stands at 144.

The NGO cited increasingly hostile attacks from the U.S. government on the press as one reason for the decline, noting that “President Trump has continued to declare the press as the ‘enemy of the American people’ and ‘fake news’ in an apparent attempt to discredit critical reporting.”

US President Donald Trump.
US President Donald Trump. Photo: Brendan Smialowski, AFP

Governments in a democracy have a responsibility to support a free press. Mexican officials must improve the criminal justice system to ensure that the murderers of journalists are brought to justice – for democracy’s sake.

With the sad state of journalist safety in Mexico these days, normally I’d urge U.S. government officials to increase the pressure on Mexican authorities to better ensure the safety of journalists. But between our president’s obsession with immigrants and the border wall and his incessant attacks against our nation’s own journalists, I’m not sure what is possible on the freedom-of-press front if it involves President Trump and Mexico.

At the very least, I can do my best to draw attention to this sorrowful situation involving journalists under fire.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Kris Kodrich

Kris Kodrich

Associate Professor, Department of Journalism & Media Communication, Colorado State University

Related Posts

Pro-Trump protester in front of Capitol Hill.
Opinion

The Ominous (and Irresponsible) Chatter of a Civil War 

by Stephen J. Lyons
September 4, 2023
Mahsa Amini protests
Democracy at Risk

Over 90 Reporters Questioned or Arrested in Iran Since Protests: Media

by Staff Writer
August 8, 2023
President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House.
Opinion

Boxing Day Comes to South Florida

by Stephen J. Lyons
July 5, 2023
A noose is seen on makeshift gallows as supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021
National

Militia Leader Gets 18 Years in Prison Over US Capitol Attack

by Staff Writer
May 26, 2023
Donald Trump
National

US Supreme Court Freezes Release of Trump Tax Returns

by Staff Writer
November 1, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Capitol Riot Probe Votes to Subpoena Trump to Testify

by Staff Writer
October 13, 2022
Next Post
Palestinian women protest in support of women's rights outside the prime minister's office in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah

More to Palestine than Conflict: It’s Time to Talk About Internal Human Rights

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Blow for UK PM as Court Strikes Down Parliament Suspension

Recommended

Health care workers in Richmond, Texas. Photo: AFP

US Healthcare Industry Top Target of Cyber Attacks: Report

September 29, 2023
Joe Biden

The ‘Polycrisis’ Challenge: Biden’s Vision for Global Problem-Solving

September 26, 2023
Air France flights

Niger Bans French Aircraft From Its Airspace: Aviation Authority 

September 25, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China Announces ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Syria

September 22, 2023
Man holding up a colored LGBT flag

France Sets Up Embassy Fund to Defend LGBTQ Rights

September 19, 2023
US Authorities Seize Artworks Allegedly Stolen by Nazis

US Authorities Seize Artworks Allegedly Stolen by Nazis

September 19, 2023

Opinion

Joe Biden

The ‘Polycrisis’ Challenge: Biden’s Vision for Global Problem-Solving

September 26, 2023
Pro-Trump protester in front of Capitol Hill.

The Ominous (and Irresponsible) Chatter of a Civil War 

September 4, 2023
A bamboo-based design raises family homes safely above water levels to cope with raising water levels in Bangladesh.

The West Owes Climate Refugees Reparations Now

August 14, 2023
President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House.

Boxing Day Comes to South Florida

July 5, 2023
‘Deaths of Despair:’ Why Are US Suicides on the Rise?

An Inspired Choice to Lead the CDC

June 13, 2023
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 19, 2022.

Florida Man Channels Benito Mussolini

June 13, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post