AFP 03/05/2022
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Relatives of Mexican journalist Armando Linares mourn during his funeral in Zitacuaro, Michoacan state, Mexico, March 16.
Enrique Castro/AFP/Getty Images
Mexican journalist Armando Linares sheds tears as he describes the press’s powerlessness to defend itself in an area filled with drug cartel activity.
In an emotional Facebook video posted earlier this year, he announced the murder of an aide, Roberto Toledo, who was shot dead in January in the garage of a law office in the western state of Michoacan. He said the murders followed threats made against Monitor Michoacán, a publication Mr Linares worked for that was digging into local corruption.
“We don’t carry weapons. Our only defense is a pen, a pencil and a notebook,” Mr. Linares said in the video. “There are names and we know where it all comes from.”
Mr Linares was killed six weeks later, as gunmen shot him at home in front of his family. The journalists covering his funeral were chased away by the thugs. Monitor Michoacan subsequently suspended its operations.
Mexico has long been the hemisphere’s deadliest country for news media worker. The confluence of rampant drug cartel violence, political corruption and total impunity – few crimes committed against journalists are prosecuted or punished – has turned the country into a graveyard for journalists.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, eight Mexican journalists have been murdered so far in 2022 – which corresponds to nine murders in 2021. This is the highest total for any country outside the war zone.
“Tolerating violence against journalists is what generates and allows this violence against journalists to continue,” said Diego Peterson Farah, a columnist for the Guadalajara newspaper El Informador. “It is relatively cheap to kill a journalist in many parts of Mexico knowing there are no consequences.”
President Andres Manuel López Obrador has added to the sadness for journalists. He has expressed condolences and expressed solidarity after the killing of news media personnel. But he has also described himself as a victim, calling the widespread outrage over such killings a “false” attack on his administration.
“Of course our adversaries take advantage of anything to attack us,” Mr. López Obrador said in January after the assassination of Tijuana journalist Lourdes Maldonado. The second murder of a journalist in a border town in less than two weeks.
Mr. López Obrador later attributed the violence to the lingering legacy of neoliberalism in Mexico. He enthused the European Parliament after passing a resolution expressing concern over the killing of journalists in country.
“It is regrettable that you will be involved like sheep in the reactionary and coup tactics of a corrupt group that opposes the Fourth Change,” wrote Mr. López Obrador, referring to his government’s branding.
He has also targeted journalists probing his government and family. He also used his daily press conferences to allegedly spread personal financial information on journalist Carlos Lorette de Mola, whose outlet, Latinas, reported the president’s sons living in a Houston luxury home owned by a senior executive with a state contractor. uncovered one. -run oil company Pemex. (The president’s son, Jose Ramón López Beltrán, has denied any wrongdoing.)
AMLO – as the President is known – will stop attacks on journalists when he comes to power in December 2018. But according to the press freedom organization Article 19, attacks have increased by 85 percent.
Observers say they fundamentally misunderstood the matter. AMLO speaks of the state that journalists are no longer being persecuted, but that it “disregards the responsibility of the state to prosecute and punish those who attack and kill journalists,” in the northern city of Torren. Javier Garza, a journalist from
Mexican press-freedom advocates have described a complex reality of “narco-politics”, the intersection of drug cartel control and state authority in many parts of the country along the line between the two blurring. This creates areas of silence as cartels intimidate journalists and news media outlets do not know what content is safe to publish.
Monitor Michoacan covered an area of silence in western Michoacan state, an area rife with violence in the form of drug cartels and criminal groups that were involved in activities such as illegal logging. The outlet focused on police issues and was often the first to be on the scene of breaking stories, broadcast live on social media. But like many other media outlets in the region, it steered clear of directly covering the cartel.
Advocates wonder whether AMLO’s verbal attacks on the news media lead to physical attacks, and say local politicians are imitating his belligerence, sparring with journalists and fighting at press conferences. The president holds a two-hour press conference every morning, in which he trolls his political opponents and fields softballs from “YouTubers” – friendly journalists livestreaming the event.
He raises some tough questions – but the journalists who ask him are later besieged by AMLO partisans on social media. The President also includes a weekly section known as “Who’s in the Lies”, which aims to point out the mistakes of the press, although there are often errors in the process.
Journalist Gildo Garza, who was forced to flee northern Tamaulipas state in 2017 after being threatened by Los Zetas, a notoriously violent drug cartel, said, “This is a gathering where they hunt down journalists and activists and everyone is telling the truth. Which bothers this man.”
,He is openly hostile to the press. Others were more prudent, more hypocritical,” said Carlos Bravo Rezidor, a professor of journalism in Mexico City, referring to former presidents. “He didn’t like the press, but he felt he had to adjust to it. AMLO just hates the press and wants to end it.”
Mexican journalist Armando Linares sheds tears as he describes the press’s powerlessness to defend itself in an area filled with drug cartel activity.
In an emotional Facebook video posted earlier this year, he announced the murder of an aide, Roberto Toledo, who was shot dead in January in the garage of a law office in the western state of Michoacan. He said the murders followed threats made against Monitor Michoacán, a publication Mr Linares worked for that was digging into local corruption.
“We don’t carry weapons. Our only defense is a pen, a pencil and a notebook,” Mr. Linares said in the video. “There are names and we know where it all comes from.”
Mr Linares was killed six weeks later, as gunmen shot him at home in front of his family. The journalists covering his funeral were chased away by the thugs. Monitor Michoacan subsequently suspended its operations.
Mexico has long been the hemisphere’s deadliest country for news media worker. The confluence of rampant drug cartel violence, political corruption and total impunity – few crimes committed against journalists are prosecuted or punished – has turned the country into a graveyard for journalists.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, eight Mexican journalists have been murdered so far in 2022 – which corresponds to nine murders in 2021. This is the highest total for any country outside the war zone.
“Tolerating violence against journalists is what generates and allows this violence against journalists to continue,” said Diego Peterson Farah, a columnist for the Guadalajara newspaper El Informador. “It is relatively cheap to kill a journalist in many parts of Mexico knowing there are no consequences.”
President Andres Manuel López Obrador has added to the sadness for journalists. He has expressed condolences and expressed solidarity after the killing of news media personnel. But he has also described himself as a victim, calling the widespread outrage over such killings a “false” attack on his administration.
“Of course our adversaries take advantage of anything to attack us,” Mr. López Obrador said in January after the assassination of Tijuana journalist Lourdes Maldonado. The second murder of a journalist in a border town in less than two weeks.
Mr. López Obrador later attributed the violence to the lingering legacy of neoliberalism in Mexico. He enthused the European Parliament after passing a resolution expressing concern over the killing of journalists in country.
“It is regrettable that you will be involved like sheep in the reactionary and coup tactics of a corrupt group that opposes the Fourth Change,” wrote Mr. López Obrador, referring to his government’s branding.
He has also targeted journalists probing his government and family. He also used his daily press conferences to allegedly spread personal financial information on journalist Carlos Lorette de Mola, whose outlet, Latinas, reported the president’s sons living in a Houston luxury home owned by a senior executive with a state contractor. uncovered one. -run oil company Pemex. (The president’s son, Jose Ramón López Beltrán, has denied any wrongdoing.)
AMLO – as the President is known – will stop attacks on journalists when he comes to power in December 2018. But according to the press freedom organization Article 19, attacks have increased by 85 percent.
Observers say they fundamentally misunderstood the matter. AMLO speaks of the state that journalists are no longer being persecuted, but that it “disregards the responsibility of the state to prosecute and punish those who attack and kill journalists,” in the northern city of Torren. Javier Garza, a journalist from
Mexican press-freedom advocates have described a complex reality of “narco-politics”, the intersection of drug cartel control and state authority in many parts of the country along the line between the two blurring. This creates areas of silence as cartels intimidate journalists and news media outlets do not know what content is safe to publish.
Monitor Michoacan covered an area of silence in western Michoacan state, an area rife with violence in the form of drug cartels and criminal groups that were involved in activities such as illegal logging. The outlet focused on police issues and was often the first to be on the scene of breaking stories, broadcast live on social media. But like many other media outlets in the region, it steered clear of directly covering the cartel.
Advocates wonder whether AMLO’s verbal attacks on the news media lead to physical attacks, and say local politicians are imitating his belligerence, sparring with journalists and fighting at press conferences. The president holds a two-hour press conference every morning, in which he trolls his political opponents and fields softballs from “YouTubers” – friendly journalists livestreaming the event.
He raises some tough questions – but the journalists who ask him are later besieged by AMLO partisans on social media. The President also includes a weekly section known as “Who’s in the Lies”, which aims to point out the mistakes of the press, although there are often errors in the process.
Journalist Gildo Garza, who was forced to flee northern Tamaulipas state in 2017 after being threatened by Los Zetas, a notoriously violent drug cartel, said, “This is a gathering where they hunt down journalists and activists and everyone is telling the truth. Which bothers this man.”
,He is openly hostile to the press. Others were more prudent, more hypocritical,” said Carlos Bravo Rezidor, a professor of journalism in Mexico City, referring to former presidents. “He didn’t like the press, but he felt he had to adjust to it. AMLO just hates the press and wants to end it.”
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