International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 68

International Journal on Criminology
Attacks on Journalists
As noted in “Attacks on Journalists
and “New Media” in Mexico’s Drug
War: A Power and Counter Power
Assessment” (Sullivan 2011):
An increasingly significant component of this
violence has been directed against journalists
and media outlets in an effort to silence
the media so the cartels can operate with
impunity. Television stations (such as Televisa
in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León) have
been attacked with grenades, journalists assassinated,
kidnapped or disappeared. According
to the Committee to Protect Journalists
(2010), at least 30 journalists have
been killed or disappeared in Mexico in the
past four years, and 11 have been killed this
year [2010] alone. A detailed map tracking
violence against Mexican journalists has
been developed by The Knight Center for
Journalism in the Americas at the University
of Texas, Austin (Knight Center 2010).
As I have previously recounted, on
September 18, 2010, Ciudad Juárez’s newspaper
El Diario (currently edited across the
international frontier in El Paso) printed an
unprecedented editorial ¿Qué quieren de
nosotros? In English, simply "What do you
want from us?" Published the day after one
of its photographers was murdered, the editorial
provides a stark illustration of the intense
assault against Mexico’s free press by
cartel gangsterism. The El Diario editorial
(translation at Los Angeles Times, La Plaza)
read in part:
Gentlemen of the different organizations
that are fighting for the Ciudad Juarez plaza,
the loss of two reporters of this news organization
represents an irreparable breakdown
for all of us who work here, and in
particular, for our families.
We'd like you to know that we're communicators,
not psychics. As such, as information
workers, we ask that you explain what
it is you want from us, what you'd intend
for us to publish or to not publish, so that
we know what is expected of us.
You are at this time the de facto authorities
in this city because the legal authorities
have not been able to stop our
colleagues from falling, despite the fact
that we've repeatedly demanded it from
them. Because of this, before this undeniable
reality, we direct ourselves to you
with these questions, because the last
thing we want is that another one of our
colleagues falls victim to your bullets.
Here we see the raw response to cartel
info ops and narco-censorship. This pattern
is repeating itself in a brutal fashion. As
noted in the companion paper to this piece:
An increasingly significant component
of this violence has been directed against
journalists and media outlets in an effort
to silence the media so the cartels can operate
with impunity. Television stations
(such as Televisa in Tamaulipas and Nuevo
León) have been attacked with grenades,
and journalists assassinated, kidnapped or
disappeared. One of the most visceral artifacts
of the cartel counter-power struggle is
brutal attacks on journalists. According to
Article 19, in 2011 there were 172 attacks
on journalists in Mexico. These figures include
9 murders of journalists, 2 murders of
media workers, 2 disappearances of journalists,
and 8 assaults with firearms or explosives
against media facilities or installations
(Article 19 2012). Since 2000, 66 journalists
have been killed, 13 journalists have disappeared,
and 33 media buildings or facilities
have been targets of explosive or firearm attacks
(Article 19 2012).
As I recounted in my 2011 paper on
cartel info ops (Sullivan 2011):
News blackouts have become a feature
of the Mexican drug war. This has two
facets: government information operations
and cartel info ops. According to the Knight
Center, “coverage of drug trafficking in Mex-
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