Cover Sheet

Jenah Ovalles-Forey
ovalles-forey,jSTORY1
Journalists Against Drug Trafficking
Sept.10, 2014
Budget Line:
The work of journalists/artists is affected by the culture they live
in, sometimes putting their lives at risk.
Sources:
Gabriela Polit - Author of Narrating Narcos: Culiacan and
Medellin, Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UT
o Phone: (512)-232-4539
o Email: gabriela@austin.utexas.edu
o Contacted: In person September 5 and 9
o Discussed: Topic of book and how culture of Mexico and
Columbia has effected journalists
Robert Ainslie Discussant for Book Talk: Narrating Narcos,
Department of Educational Psychology at UT
o Phone: (512)-471-0364
o Email: rico.ainslie@mail.utexas.edu
o Contacted: September 5th
o Discussed: Gabriela Polits Narrating Narcos
Invisible sources/Websites:
Riodoce
o URL: www.riodoce.mx
o Accessed: September 7-9
o Information: What the newspaper is about and origin
Committee to Protect Journalists
o www.cpj.org
o Accessed: September 6-7
o Information: The number of journalists killed in Mexico
since 1992
International Press Institute
o www.freemedia.at
o Accessed: September 8-9
o Information: The number of journalists deaths in Mexico
compared to Iraq in past years.
Follow up story ideas:
How has the number journalists deaths risen or fallen under new
president?
The ways in which Riodoce stays an independent news source.

The number of independent news sources in Mexico and

Colombia today compared to the middle of the war on drugs.
Journalists Against Drug Trafficking
Journalists in Latin American countries face a difficult decision:

report the truth and risk being killed or ignore the drug violence that is
traumatizing communities.
At a book talk Friday in Sid Richardson Hall, Professor Gabriela
Polit said deciding to report a story that reveals the corruption within
the city will usually be followed by a violent threat directed toward
journalists. From the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the
University of Texas at Austin, Polits latest book, Narrating Narcos:
Culiacan and Medellin shares stories of different types of artists and
analyzes how their work is being influenced by the local drug culture in
Mexico and Columbia.
If we really want to know whats going on, its important to be
able to look at local presses because theyre the ones there, Polit said
regarding the responsibility of media sources in communities filled with
violent crime.
During a follow up in 2009 with Javier Valdez Cardenas, a
journalist referenced in her book, Polit said Cardenas was in still in
shock from an event that took place earlier in the year before their
meeting. Valdez Cardenas, among others, founded Riodoce in 2003,
which is an independent weekly newspaper Culiacan. In September of

2009, Riodoce began publishing a series of articles about drug

trafficking titled Hitman: Confession of an Assassin in Ciudad Juarez.
In the days following the series Polit said, a grenade was thrown into
the Riodoce office. Only the building was damaged, but the attackers
were never identified.
This is the impunity and the random way that which people can
just commit crimes, Polit said regarding the grenade attack. And
theres no accountability.
Since 1992, 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico with a
confirmed motive, according the Committee to Protect Journalists. The
CPJ terminology, found on its website, states the meaning of
confirmed motive as the confirmation that the journalists death were
directly related to their profession. Of those 30 deaths, 80 percent of
them were while covering crime related to their beats.
As stated by the International Press Institutes Death Watch,
Mexico ranked higher in the number of journalist-related deaths than
Iraq from 2009 to 2011.
The only way that we can think about reporters being more
free to talk is when there is political stability, Polit said. Im not
saying that the government is not stable. Im saying that we actually
dont know how much power the illegal groups have and how much at
stake it is.

According to Professor Ricardo Ainslie of the Department of

Educational Psychology at UT, who served as the discussant at Polits
book talk, the Mexican government budgeted a lot of money into
social, education and health programs in 2010 but didnt receive much
praise for doing so by their people. The reactions Ainslie describes of
local citizens are almost cynical in the sense that they believe the
funding is only an attempt to appear at peace with people without any
change after the chaos that went on during the previous war. Polit said
it will be harder for the Mexican society to overcome the amount of
violence that took place in recent years in comparison to the amount
from the 1980s and 1990s. Today drug trafficking involves using
humans as mules, killing immigrants and doing things that make her
think was that necessary?
When things are back under some type of control, then
journalists will be able to talk, Polit said. Because no one will feel
threatened.