MexicoBlog Editorial: Hope from the Hinterlands

Each day, we read many articles from many news sources, selecting for this blog those we think are most enlightening on the issues of U.S. policy that affect Mexico, particularly drugs and immigration. As would be expected, the major media show up most often: the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, AP, Reuters, as well alternative sources such as NPR, Alternet and some blogs.

But other media, less well-known - even unknown outside their local territory - also show up, reporting and stating opinions clearly and with intelligence on the issues of drugs and immigration. In the past month, for example, we have posted worthy articles from WLWT radio of Cincinnati, Ohio, the Louisiana Weekly, the Terra Haute (Indiana) TribStar, the Pensacola (Florida) News Journal, and the San Gabriel Valley (California) Tribune.

We also see that the world is watching. This month we have posted reports on the U.S.-Mexico connection that have appeared in such far-flung places as Austrailia, Singapore, and the Ukraine, as well as in neighboring Ottawa, Canada.  This blog aims to educate a U.S. audience. Its second largest audience is, not surprisingly, in Mexico. But it has readers from around the world, from many countries in Europe, including the Ukraine and Russia, and in Asia. For some reason we don't yet fathom, there is a lot of interest in South Korea!

In the midst of all the horrific news of the drug war and the demagoguery over immigration, this evidence that there is meaningful reporting going on in the far corners of the United States - and that the whole world is watching - gives us hope. Here's to freedom of the press and the Internet!