Between bullets, the distressing daily life of Mexican journalists

It's Monday and Maria is ready to report in Aguascalientes, Mexico, but upon death threat, this journalist must perform a ritual before leaving home: ask the authorities to monitor her steps and hand over the itinerary to her escorts.

Simultaneously photographers Jesús Aguilar in Tijuana, Lenin Ocampo in Chilpancingo, Martín Patiño in Guadalajara and reporter Maria Teresa Montaño in Toluca return to the streets to cover the violence of organized crime and trace corruption.

Everyone lives with fear in tow, said AFP after accompanying them for a day's work. This reality is exacerbated by the murder of eight journalists since last January, compared to seven in all of 2021.

The blood trail continues to grow in Mexico, one of the most dangerous countries for the press with about 150 journalist homicides since 2000. The most recent one occurred on Tuesday in Michoacán (west), where Armando Linares was shot.

“I know that my life is at risk every day and it is terrible to live with the threat, with the fear that you will go out and no longer return,” says Maria Martinez, 55, in her small house in Aguascalientes protected by several locks and security cameras.

Director of the digital media Pendulo Informativo, has denounced threats for her investigations into corruption and civil servants' links with drug traffickers.

Several policemen were imprisoned after their publications.

“You're going to die, dog!” , warned of one of the threats received on his phone and for which he was included in a government program that protects half a thousand communicators.

- At the mercy of crime -

In Tijuana, the fear of Jesús Aguilar intensified on January 17 when the photographer Margarito Martínez, with whom he worked daily in that city, was murdered. There, too, days later, Lourdes Maldonado fell under bullets despite being in the protection program.

The tragic saga of 2022 is completed by José Luis Gamboa, Roberto Toledo (Linares's partner), Heber López, Juan Carlos Muñiz and Jorge Luis Camero.

Covering settling drug traffickers' accounts and denouncing corruption or its links with politicians and security forces leaves these reporters at the mercy of hit men.

“When a car comes after me slowly I feel like it's going to stop and they're going to shoot me. Or when I'm parked and I look at a vehicle closer to me, I move the seat back and lie down to protect myself,” says Aguilar, 32.

In Toluca, independent reporter Maria Teresa Montaño (53) also works with escorts, after being kidnapped a few hours in 2021 after revealing a network of corruption.

“My private life is limited (...), it has been very difficult. You have to be very careful” with travel, he says.

Since 2006, when an anti-drug offensive was deployed, Mexico has accumulated some 340,000 murders, most attributed to the actions of criminals.

- Impotence -

Martinez asks federal authorities to call her every two hours using a geolocator, which also functions as a panic button. But she trusts her armed guards more.

“I owe them my life! Without them I would no longer be alive!” , she said, pointing to two retired special forces soldiers accompanying her in a car.

Dressed in civilian clothes, both men are attentive to any vehicle or person who approaches, and when the journalist walks they do not move more than two meters away.

In Chilpancingo (south), photographer Lenin Ocampo (40 years old) tells that he often runs into members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel or La Familia Michoacana. “They stop us, they check us. The threat is always latent.”

During the night, next to a car set on fire by unknown persons in Guadalajara (west), his colleague Martín Patiño (41) declares his “powerlessness” due to impunity in the crimes of journalists, which according to Reporters Without Borders reaches 92%. “The authorities don't do anything.”

Since its creation in 2010, the prosecutor's office specializing in crimes against freedom of expression has achieved 28 sentences, out of nearly 1,500 complaints of homicide, assaults and threats against journalists. Not all cases fall within its competence.

The president of Mexico, the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promises “zero impunity”, noting that there are 17 detainees for four of the deaths.

“There are no elements in any of these murders to point out public officials as responsible (...). These are crimes that have been committed by criminal gangs,” he said Wednesday when he lamented the murder of Linares, who had denounced threats for “exposing corrupt officials and politicians.”

Faced with a sector of the traditional press that he accuses of serving private interests, the president rejects as recent “interfering” calls from the United States and the European Parliament to protect reporters.

- Job insecurity -

The photographers interviewed lack security equipment, and like many journalists from the interior of the country, they collaborate with various media outlets.

Most people who cover the red chronicle “depend on the number of notes or photos they sell to pay rent, so they prioritize production over safety,” explains Jan-Albert Hootsen, of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

A journalist from the state of Guerrero told AFP that there are newspapers that pay just $3.8 per photograph.

Moreover, since there are not many, those who cover violence “are highly recognizable, increasing their level of insecurity,” Hootsen observes.

Prosecutors and regional governments sometimes do not know the journalistic profile of victims because they are not part of the payrolls of recognized media or work on social networks.

A few days before her appointment with the AFP, María Martínez suffered a pre-infarction that she attributes to stress due to her situation and which - she says - has already caused a stroke.

The journalist, who rules out renouncing the profession she is passionate about, concludes the day with an interview with the ex-wife of a drug trafficker for her first book.

“My family has asked me to quit journalism, but I am a woman with convictions, of courage (...), I have a social responsibility,” she justifies.

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