Press Coverage of the U.S.-Mexico Drug War

November 19, 2009

A good friend, who is a former foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, recently told me about the pressure he got from his editors during a recent reporting stint along the U.S.-Mexico border.  "They only wanted me to come up with the big story on the drug war, to find breaking news over and over again," he said.  "But nothing that big was happening in Tijuana; the action was in Ciudad Juárez instead."  

By "action," he was referring to the dozens of weekly reports of attacks, torture, murders, disappearances, and even what appears to be random violence in Juárez, directly across from El Paso, Texas—one of the safest cities in the United States.  Between March and September of this year, at least 40 people who received treatment for drug addiction at rehab facilities in Juárez were killed by gunmen; the reason why they were targeted remains unclear.  Last month, Juárez' murder rate became the highest in the world, surpassing that of Caracas and Rio de Janeiro.  

While it's incredibly important to denounce this violence and inform the public, the general reporting trend coming out of Mexico's drug war seems to be reaching its lowest point.  There is something sad and cold and detached to that "action" approach to journalism that frames the story as a way to generate readership and higher ratings.  Our quick turnaround news cycle and the current economic recession are driving reporters to deliver ever grimmer and bombastic news on the U.S. side of the border; on the Mexican side, the situation is different.

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