Journalism in Mexico: Where getting the story could mean getting killed

Is it worth risking your life to cover the news? Mexican reporters ask themselves that question all the time, working as they do in the most dangerous place on earth for journalists outside of war zones.

And with five reporters killed for doing their job so far this year, the question weighs more heavily than ever. For some, it’s become even more personal.

The threat to Mexican journalists – particularly local reporters – comes from organized crime hit-men, local government officials, and other, often anonymous, sources. The intimidation scares some journalists out of the profession, and forces others to self-censor, limiting what Mexicans can read and see about their country.

Twenty-nine journalists have been killed here since 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, not including those killed so far this year. It’s not a trend anyone expects to drop off soon.

“This isn’t one simple problem that can be solved with a few simple solutions,” says Jan-Albert Hootsen, the CPJ’s Mexico representative. Corruption, near-blanket impunity for journalists’ killers, and poor police training mean “this is a problem that was many decades in the making and will take many years to resolve,” he adds.

The Christian Science Monitor spoke with Mexican reporters at different stages in their careers and in different parts of the country about what keeps them going, and their hopes for the future of their profession.

Writing “stories for history”

Juan Alberto Cedillo Guerrero never expected to be one of the few investigative reporters covering the explosion of crime and violence in northeastern Mexico. He studied history but dropped out of college, and found his footing in journalism covering financial news.

But when violence began to spiral about 15 years ago, he started questioning what was behind it. That led him to cover landmark stories like the 2011 three-day-long massacre of civilians in the small border town of Allende (retold in a Netflix drama, “Somos,” last year), and to write five books about crime and violence.

He was detained and beaten by municipal police whom he had photographed making an arrest, and he’s received too many threats on his life to count. Somebody angered by his reports that narcotraffickers were teaming up with local gangs even smashed up his plumbing.

He’d asked the national newspaper which ran that story not to publish his byline, but editors in Mexico City ignored his request; perhaps they were unaware of the risks he was running.

“This is part of the emotional crisis,” many Mexican reporters face, he says. “In my region you know what it means to investigate and write a story like this.”

 “Often after publishing a big investigation, I’ll disappear for a little bit,” taking trips out of town or moving from guest bed to guest bed in the homes of generous friends, he says. “I can feel really scared, but then it passes.” He belongs to a national network designed to protect journalists and human rights workers, but chuckles at its effectiveness. He says the panic button he received as a member of the program “isn’t much more than a toy.”

Mr. Cedillo has considered quitting. And he has often resorted to self-censorship. If he and his wife hadn’t separated over a decade ago, he says, he would never have taken the risks that his beat demands. His family’s safety would have been at stake.

“What gives me the conviction to keep going, despite the risks, is to write this down in the most understandable and well-documented way,” Mr. Cedillo says. That way, perhaps, in the future, people will be able to better understand, and to fix, Mexico’s problems.

“I want to write stories for history,” he says.

“A lifestyle”

Alejandro Castro Flores, 27, is not only a journalist; he is an activist who last month helped organize nation-wide demonstrations demanding greater protection for reporters and their freedom of expression. Some of his colleagues in Cancun who turned out carried signs that read “We won’t forget they shot us here.” Two years ago, police had opened fire on them as they reported on a protest against violence against women.

“It makes me hopeful,” he says. “My generation is planting some seeds, but those coming up behind us are going to change the entire landscape” with their readiness to be outspoken.

Mr. Castro is a freelance reporter in Quintana Roo, the site of popular beach destinations such as Cancun and Tulum. Organized crime is gaining traction – and international headlines – there, and clashes are catching tourists in their crossfire. Journalists have been targeted for their coverage of everything from environmental destruction to local politics.

“I’ve seen dozens of journalists killed in Mexico over the past four years [since starting his career], but that’s only part of what makes the profession precarious,” Mr. Castro says. Just cobbling together a living by writing for a mix of local, national, and international outlets about the environment, human rights, and sometimes crime and security is hard enough. “The uncertainty of the situation is pretty traumatizing,” he says.

He says he doesn’t know a single young journalist who hasn’t already wondered “should I open a bakery instead? Become a carpenter?” Yet, he’s dedicated to this work. “It’s a profession, but it’s also a lifestyle,” he says, admitting that even when he is off duty he is often thinking about his work.

Mr. Castro grew up in a rural hamlet; his discovery of journalism at his university’s radio station in Mexico City and his early days as a reporter in the capital opened his eyes to social inequalities, he recalls. “Through journalism, “you can generate certain changes,” he says, hopefully. “I know it’s just one grain of sand and maybe my work won’t change everything, but it’s an integral part of democracy, even imperfect democracies.”

“Unspoken limits”

For a long time, Nohemí Vilchis Treviño’s parents seemed to think that journalism would never be more than her hobby.

“When I graduated and wasn’t looking for PR jobs or to report the weather, my mom sat down to ask me about my future,” recalls the recent journalism graduate in the northern city of Monterrey. “You should find an office job. Use Excel. Don’t risk yourself as a reporter,” she says her mom told her.

Ms. Vilchis gets it. She never sought an internship at a local newspaper because she knew “the first assignment would be to go out and cover local politics or security,” she says. That was an unnerving prospect in Monterrey, a city where shootouts in the historic center and bodies hanging from bridges were not uncommon.

Very few of her classmates are covering local news either. “Almost everyone wanted to cover entertainment,” Ms. Vilchis says. It’s safer.

“There are unspoken limits about where you can go, what you can cover,” as a reporter in Mexico, she says. Yet, Ms. Vilchis still wants to report on social issues, even if not in a conventional way for daily papers or TV news. She recently started work at a publication targeting academics and policy makers, writing about education and technology.

Sometimes she wonders whether she really shares a profession with reporters spending their time out in the field uncovering difficult and dangerous truths. But, she says, at the end of the day she’s conducting interviews, thinking critically, synthesizing complicated information, and using professional journalistic skills.

“Even if not a lot of people are reading it, I have found my purpose in journalism,” she says. “I want people to see my work and think, ‘I didn’t know that before,’ or ‘I hadn’t thought about it that way,’” she says.

“There is a lot to investigate in Mexico,” she says. “There’s a lot to tell the world.”