Mexico’s Drug War and The Cost of Journalism

Since 2006, an estimated 50,000 people have died in drug- and gang-related violence in Mexico — 49 of whom were found this weekend without heads, hands or feet outside Monterrey:

Ray Suarez: Has it been tougher to ask your journalists to go out into the field and cover this, when you know they’re taking their lives into their hands?

Alejandro Junco, owner of Grupa Reforma, one of the largest print media operations in Latin America: Well, I must tell you that I have a lot of respect and I have a lot of debt to a lot of journalists, a lot of men and women that pay the price, that run the risk.

And every day, they go out there and they know that, because we’re doing something that is important for our fragile democracy, you know, they continue to do it. But when you walk into the museum in Washington and you see the countries of the world there on a map, and you see our country, Mexico, in red, meaning that there is no freedom of expression, it breaks my heart.

And it’s painful to see that. But, on the other hand, I must agree because it has — the risk of publishing the truth, of going out there and reporting is getting higher.

There’s higher prices to be paid. There are more risks to be run, as we are seeing in the paper in the border in Nuevo Laredo. They simply stopped printing news that relate to organized crime.

Full interview