Journalists talk about the perils of working along the U.S.-Mexico border
By Vicki Nisbett
Journalists who work near the U.S.-Mexico border said during a panel discussion at New Mexico State University on Thursday that they have to practice self-censorship because they fear becoming another statistic or making someone else a target in a conflict that has cost many lives.
Two dozen Mexican journalists have been killed in the past nine years for speaking openly about violence and murders that have plagued Mexico. Another seven have disappeared, according to the El Paso Times.
In February, 38-year-old photojournalist Jean Paul Ibarra Ramirez, from the Mexican newspaper El Correo, was shot and killed. Twenty-two-year-old Yenny Yuliana Marchan Arroyo, from the newspaper Diario 21, was also shot, but survived.
“(As a journalist), you have to ask yourself, is this issue getting the attention it deserves? But at what cost?” El Paso Times reporter Diana Washington Valdez, a member of the panel, said on Wednesday.
The journalists who participated in the forum, titled “Censorship by Bullet and Intimidation: Journalists’ Murders in Mexico,” spoke about covering the chilling murders in Juárez and Chihuahua since the 1990s, the continued unrest there and what it’s like to be Mexican journalists.
The journalism and mass communications, government and history departments co-hosted the Madison Day panel in honor of former President James Madison, who is known as “Father of the Constitution” and drafter of the Bill of Rights.
“We host a panel each year for Madison Day,” journalism and mass communications professor Mary Lamonica said. “The topic we chose this year is a real issue and happens to be only 40 miles away, so it seemed to be a perfect topic to discuss.”
Nancy Baker, the government department head and panel moderator, opened the discussion by saying journalists are threatened not just in Mexico, but also globally.
“When journalists are killed, it is a threat to democracy itself,” Baker said.
Day and night
Journalism professor Bruce Berman, who is also a New York Times border photographer assigned to El Paso and Juárez, helped organize the event and spoke in an interview about the contrast between nighttime and daytime in Juárez, a border city currently caught in a battle between the Mexican Army and cartels. During the day, life seems almost normal except for the fact that businesses are suffering from a lack of tourists.
“I went to a local soccer game recently during the day and the citizens were so involved in the game. It was so normal, and was like an island of peace for them,” Berman said. “… The night is for the cartel.”
The panel members were Valdez, who wrote the 2006 book, “The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women,” about the murders and disappearances of about 400 women in the cities of Juárez and Chihuahua; Ricardo Lopez, photo editor of El Diario de Juárez; Sito Negron, editor of El Paso’s online newspaper, Newspaper Tree; and Alejandra Manuela Gomez, broadcast and print journalist for “Net Información Total” magazine and author of the book “Rediscovering the Philosophical Importance of Jose Ingenieros – A Bridge Between Two Worlds- Jose Ingenieros and His Impact.”
Lopez said there are “many dedicated journalists” in Mexico. He and others discussed the reality that photographers in Juárez need to be wary when they show up after a shooting because sometimes the gunmen can return to the scene or can be in a crowd watching after the event.
Someone asked Lopez about intimidation, and he said he had heard of journalists having to accept money because it was “not an option” to write a story with a certain angle or to print a photo. He says he doesn’t personally know of anyone who has taken money.
Media exaggeration?
An audience member asked whether the deploying of the Mexican military to Juárez has helped eradicate corruption. Negron said he thinks the unrest in Juárez is exaggerated by the media, which creates imagery of gun-laden Mexicans shooting everything after they cross the border. He claimed there are just as many drug-related shootings in America.
“I think it’s almost racist to ask the question, ‘Will the violence spill over to America?’” he said about the violence in Mexico.
To read more about Negron’s opinions, click here.
Gomez, whose mother was a journalist in Mexico who was killed, along with other family members, when Gomez was six years old, said she also thinks the media exaggerates the violence, though she did say there are problems.
Gomez, who works and lives in Juárez, showed examples of Mexican journalists writing uncensored stories or taking photographs.
Valdez, on the other hand, said the violence in Mexico has worsened in recent years.
Nisbett is a freelance writer and the owner of the business Punctilious Publications. She’s currently writing stories for this site and looking for other opportunities. She can be reached at puncpubs@yahoo.com. A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Berman spoke at the event.