The threat to American journalists in Mexico

Mexican journalists aren’t the only ones who are facing the danger reporting in Mexico. Many times, American journalists are targeted with threats, and sometimes death.

In July, the San Antonio Express-News took a reporter, Mariano Castillo, out of their Laredo bureau because of a threat of a hit from a drug cartel. Laredo is a bordertown on the Texas/Mexico border. Just across the Rio Grande is Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican town known for violence. On July 14, Express-News public editor Bob Richter wrote a column in the newspaper. In it, he mentions how editors had met in Nuevo Laredo to discuss ways to give courage to the reporters covering drug trafficking.

Moving Castillo out of Laredo was a difficult decision for them. But they have experience in losing reporters in Mexico. In late 1998, Philip True, a reporter convering the Huichol Indians in the mountains of Mexico, was killed when he embarked on a solo hike. His body was found in an area northwest of Guadalajara. While the killers are still avading capture, it has been found that the indians he had been writing about were the ones who killed him.

While most of my research will be about Mexican journalists and their government, I thought I’d quickly share that those killed in Mexico are not always Mexican, just how Iraqi journalists aren’t the only ones being killed in Iraq.