MEXICO CITY – A Mexican newspaper in the heartland of the country’s drug war has asked cartels for guidance on whether it should publish stories on the conflict.
El Diario de Juarez has become known for its strong reporting from the deadly streets of Ciudad Juarez.
But the killing of a 21-year-old photographer last week prompted the newspaper to run a front-page editorial asking: “What do you want from us?”
Rights groups say journalists are regularly being targeted by gangs.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a United States-based advocacy group, says more than 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006.
El Diario’s editorial, published on its front page on Sunday, was its second since Luis Carlos Santiago, 21, was shot in Ciudad Juarez on September 17. He later died of his injuries, although an intern who was also shot, Carlos Sanchez, survived the attack.
“The loss of two reporters from this publishing house in less than two years represents an irreparable sorrow for all of us who work here, and, in particular, for their families,” the newspaper said.
Describing the drug lords as the “de facto authorities” within Ciudad Juarez, the newspaper asked the cartels: “We ask you to explain what you want from us, what we should try to publish or not publish, so we know what to expect.”
It highlighted the lack of progress in the investigation into the 2008 death of Armando Rodriguez, shot dead outside his home in view of his family.
But the editorial insisted it was not “a surrender”, saying instead that it had simply become “impossible to do our job in these conditions”. (BBC)
