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New strategies needed to protect journalists in Mexican drug war

The New York Times yesterday ran an article on widespread drug cartel intimidation and assassination of reporters covering Mexico's drug war, which has resulted in many murders and other major, criminal events going uncovered in the MSM ("Fearing drug cartels, reporters in Mexico retreat," March 13). The story opens:REYNOSA, Mexico ? The big philosophical question in this gritty border town does not concern trees falling in the forest but bodies falling on the concrete: Does a shootout actually happen if the newspapers print nothing about it, the radio and television stations broadcast nothing, and the authorities never confirm that it occurred? As two powerful groups of drug traffickers engaged in fierce urban combat in Reynosa in recent weeks, the reality that many residents were living and the one that the increasingly timid news media and the image-conscious politicians portrayed were difficult to reconcile...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 14, 2010 (boomark / email).