Mexican court backs reporter fired after Pena Nieto property scoop

Reuters: A court ruling issued on Tuesday may force a broadcaster to negotiate the reinstatement of a high-profile journalist fired last month after helping uncover a scandal involving President Enrique Pena Nieto's family.

The Mexico City judge ordered an April 27 hearing that may determine whether Carmen Aristegui and her popular show return to the air. Read more.

Murders, threats and duopoly: the state of press freedom in Mexico

The Guardian: On 2 January, journalist Moisés Sánchez was kidnapped by an armed group. Nine people with covered faces stormed into his house in Medellin de Bravo, a town in the wealthy eastern state of Veracruz. They searched and grabbed documents, and took Sánchez, along with his camera, laptop, mobile phone and tablet. The police took hours to come to the house. Sánchez was found dead 23 days later on the outskirts of the town.

Sánchez, editor of La Unión, is the eleventh journalist to be murdered in Veracruz since Governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa took office on 1 December 2010. As well as murders, four media professionals have gone missing and there have been 132 attacks against the local press in the same period. Read more. 

Twitter: The Safest Place for Citizen Journalists in Mexico

Mashable: Fran Berkman

A cohort of Twitter users with fake names and profile pictures have become a trusted source of information regarding drug cartel violence in Mexico.

These citizen journalists choose to remain anonymous to avoid violent backlash from gang members, but their reports have become increasingly influential.

On Jan. 8, a team from Microsoft Research published a paper called "The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare," which details a social media study conducted over the past two years. Their main finding was that as Mexicans increasingly turn to Twitter for reports of violence, a core of mostly anonymous yet trusted curators have led the dissemination of public safety information.

"You find this small cluster of people, whom we call curators, who tend to be really well-regarded in their cities," Andrés Monroy-Hernández, one of the paper's five co-authors, tells Mashable. "These particular curators are those that have a lot of followers, which means that they're somewhat trusted by the community."

In the paper, the authors discuss how difficult it was to contact and interview the curators, who feel the work puts their lives in danger. Read more. 

Mexican press: Self preservation becomes self censorship

XIndex  November 16, 2012

In Mexico drug cartels continue to dictate news agenda and in some areas, have even infiltrated the newsroom. A new investigation by Fundacion MEPI reveals the extent to which news outlets fear of cartel retaliation and a shortage of accurate government information keep the public in the dark.

MEXICO CITY – It was 38 minutes into the First Division football match at the Santos Modelo Stadium, about 275 miles from the US border, when players suddenly started running from the pitch to their locker rooms. Popping sounds interrupted the announcers. More than one million Mexican television viewers watched as a firefight between the country’s most ruthless drug cartel and local police unfolded.

The images broadcast from the industrial town of Torreon showed terrified men, women and children crouching under the stadium seats and scrambling for cover. Television Azteca, the second largest Mexican network, stopped transmission of the game. But ESPN continued, breaking its audience records worldwide for a domestic soccer match.

It was the first time drug-related violence had played out on live television alongside the country’s beloved national sport. But it also highlighted another battle, one raging inside the local Mexican media as criminal groups have continue to muzzle regional reporting on drug violence —  savagery that has left more than 60,000 dead since outgoing President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.

Despite the stadium gun battle’s obvious news value, in the newsroom of the local daily El Siglo de Torreon, editors and reporters pondered whether to publish news of the shootout in a prominent place in the following day’s paper.  The attack had pitted the Zetas organised crime group against a municipal police contingent parked near the stadium.  Read more. 

Drug War and the Rule of Law: Death threats made against journalists in Tijuana

La Jornada: "Journalists of the news portal Ten4, based in Tijuana, received death threats for their work. In a dozen written messagess, they were insulted for their "f...king reports of sh.t." The threats, signed with the pseudonym Uncle John, were issued on March 6. The next day reporters filed a  criminal complaint regarding the threats. One of them asked, "And then we'll wake up in bags, cut into quarters?"

This is the fourth assault perpetrated against journalists in the state in three weeks: on 23 February, persons riding in a van intercepted a correspondent of La Jornada in Tijuana, beating and intimidating him. Also in February, the team of the weekly newpaper, 'Zeta' was threatened with death by the Arellano Felix cartel, and last Wednesday, the director of the Image Group in Mexicali, Eduardo Pesqueira, was the victim of an act of intimidation." Spanish original

Drug War and the Media: Mexico media watchdog presents its third report on media coverage of violence

Milenio: "The Center for Public Communication Processes Regarding Violence (OPCPV) presented its third report on the 'Agreement on Media Coverage of Violence', which covers the period November 2011to January 2012 and lists a series of recommendations to the media, the authorities and spokesmen for public institutions.

The Center concurred that both public institutions and the media should refrain from leaking or disseminating preliminary inquiries in a criminal investigation, because it is illegal and may violate rights, such as the presumption of innocence, and protection of personal image, private life and reputation.

Spokesmen for the authorities and public institutions should also not become a sounding board for messages from organized crime through their dissemination to the media. Examples include situations in which authorities or the media provide the content of banners or placards allegedly made by members of criminal groups. In this regard, it recalls that the National Accord for Security, Justice and Legality, signed on August 21, 2008 by all government and many media, states that media should avoid advocacy of crime.

It further recommends "protecting, according to the highest standards, the rights to dignity and reputation without distinction. It concurs with the organization 'Article 19', which warns against differential treatment in trials for crimes against military and civilian personnel."

The report also stresses the importance of avoiding language that reaffirms the imaginary of organized crime and to limit the explanations of violent events to the facts.

This citizen institution also recommends that the media should also disseminate to citizens alternative strategies for dealing with drug trafficking.

The Center noted that in coverage of the forum on "Drugs: An Assessment of a Century of Prohibition" only some media reported criticisms of the government's strategy and that was new for the Mexican media environment. Opening the media to debate must be a commitment made to the thousands of victims left by the violence emanating from organized crime."

... Moreover, media ought to carry out more and better investigations into abuses by security forces in the fight against organized crime and utilize more requests for access to government information for the development of journalistic investigations.

Also, when publishiing images of persons, media ought to use technical methods that can protect the identity, privacy and dignity of victims of violence and their families. While giving continuity to cases of violence through investigative journalism, it should be an ethical imperative to protect the victims in order to combat impunity.

Also, any moral bias in the approach to the issue of organized crime and violence should be avoided. Do not make descriptions of events that veer from the facts towards judgemental narratives that present the actors in terms of "good" and "bad".

The Media Centre insists on the importance of protecting the right to presumption of innocence and avoiding trials via the media.

... The full report, and the inputs and methodology used in its preparation are available on its website: www.observatoriocomunicacionviolencia.org" Spanish original