Lauren Kirchner: Media as Both Weapon and Defense in the Mexican Drug War Lauren Kirchner - Pacific Standard
go to original March 13, 2014

The recent capture of drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera in Mexico was a rare victory in the war on drugs in that country. The Sinaloa Cartel and others like it have been blamed for a majority of the tens of thousands of kidnappings and 100,000 homicides recorded in Mexico since 2006.

The Mexican press has suffered great losses during the years of drug-related violence. When cartels commit crimes, the reporters who cover them often face threats. Cartels also often want to use the press to broadcast their own messages of intimidation to the public—if news outlets comply, they may suffer retaliation from rival groups. According to the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders, 88 journalists were killed in Mexico between 2000 and the end of 2013, and 18 others have disappeared.

The group blames those deaths and kidnappings on not only the criminal organizations in the country but on the “complicity of corrupt local, and sometimes federal, officials.”

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