Full Length Video "Reportero": 74 Journalists Killed in Mexico in 11 Years

 Borderland Beat

This documentary was released yesterday on POV.  It is a factual, in depth account of the danger of narco reporting in Mexico.  Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz is Mexico born and immigrated to the US as a young child. 

 

Tiring of the same type of reporting on  the subject he wanted more, in his words; " “there was just body count journalism, I kept hungering for a deeper story”. ..and deep this is, covering journalists of Zeta Magazine, the assassination attempt on Blanco and the successful killing of Francisco Ortiz with his small children in the car.  By interviews, footage and photos the journalists give the accounts of high profile incidents and criminal events. 

Such as an account that will have you on the edge of your seat, when Sergio receives a call from a person saying he had something for him.  It was a CD and when Sergio played it he was jolted by disbelief and fear.  It was the interrogation of a Sinaloa leader of the Mexicali cell, face sweaty and obvious fear as he answered questions and gave information that exposed many high profile officials.  [magazine cover is at left]

Footage  recounts what they decided to do with the CD and the process.  Much of the film has footage of the events spoken about.

There is a link to the full length video at the bottom of my post.  if you wish to skip the post and go directly to the film, keep watching beyond the credits to view the interview with the filmmaker.......Paz, Chivis

In 1980, the Mexican media didn't look favorably upon reporters like Jesús Blancornelas who challenged the party line. After being fired by five newspapers, Blancornelas took matters into his own hands, founding Zeta and initially managing it from the United States. The paper, owned by journalists, attracted other talented journalists, including Sergio Haro, who first joined as a photographer in 1987.

Héctor Félix Miranda, Zeta's co-founder, became one of its most popular columnists, writing humorously about the foibles of Mexico's politicians and social elite, using tips from readers happy to see these once-untouchable figures brought down to earth.

 "My work in Zeta is proof that freedom of expression exists in Mexico," said Miranda. "That others don't practice it is their own fault." It was assumed there would be some pushback, but what happened was horrific and unexpected:

On April 20, 1988, Miranda was shot dead by thugs who worked for Jorge Hank, son of one of Mexico's most powerful families. Hank was never investigated and would later be elected mayor of Tijuana.

Gradually, the government's hold over the media loosened. But Zeta was developing a far more deadly enemy. By the early 1990s, drug trafficking was becoming a major industry along Mexico's border with the United States.

Cartels generated huge sums of money and used it to fund lavish lifestyles, recruit a revolving network of dealers and pay off police and government officials. The drug gangs' violent rule enveloped the entire border region. "As journalists, we couldn't ignore this real problem," says Zeta co-director Adela Navarro, "so Zeta began to investigate narco-trafficking."

Blanco

Taking a stand against the traffickers had its price. In 1997, Blancornelas was ambushed by 10 gunmen working for a cartel that had moved from Sinaloa to Tijuana to traffic shipments of cocaine into the United States. Blancornelas survived only because, in a moment of poetic justice, shrapnel from one of the gunmen's bullets ricocheted and struck the gang's lead assassin in the eye, killing him.

In 1997, Haro left Zeta to found another independent newspaper, Siete Días, with Benjamín Flores. Flores was an ambitious reporter, and the paper took an aggressive stance against local drug lords.

 "Benjamín was very young, but grounded," says Haro. "Daring and audacious. But given the kind of reporting he was doing, I thought Benjamín didn't understand what he was getting into." Flores was murdered just days after his 29th birthday; his killer was apprehended but set free by Mexico's judiciary.

 

Haro retaliated through the press. "We mocked [the killer's] release, with photos of all the kilos he was trafficking," he recalls. A couple of days later, Haro's own life was threatened. Guards were appointed to protect him, while at Zeta, Blancornelas employed more than 20 bodyguards.

In a testament to how bad things have gotten in Mexico, Reportero features a spokesman from a car armoring service that offers customers varying levels of protection. "Level four can withstand an AK-47, and level five can withstand armor-piercing AR-15s," he says impassively.

"If you want to protect yourself or your family from threat of kidnapping, we recommend level four, four-plus or five. Six or seven are for someone who . . . feels someone wants to kill him."

Francisco Ortiz

Blancornelas decided that Zeta's most explosive reporting should no longer carry a byline, but reporter Francisco Ortiz insisted on keeping his in a report — complete with names and photos — on organized crime figures who had received fake IDs from the attorney general's office. Ortiz was gunned down in 2005, moments after he buckled his two children into the back seat of his car. Going forward, articles with sensitive information would carry a collective byline reading simply, "Investigation by Zeta."

Sergio received a death threat the morning after this headline

 On Nov. 23, 2006, Blancornelas, indomitable founder of Zeta, passed away not from a bullet, but from stomach cancer, and Navarro took the reins. To this day, beginning every Thursday evening, the 92-page weekly is printed just outside of San Diego and trucked to Tijuana.

In 2012, Zeta marked its 32nd year of publishing truth to very deadly power. "Only the gunmen who killed Héctor Félix were arrested," says Navarro. "The mastermind is still on the loose. The case of Blancornelas' attack remains unsolved. The crime against Francisco Ortiz in 2004 also remains unsolved. . . . The criminals have impunity. Impunity to kill whomever they want." But Zeta continues.

And after 25 years of reporting, the deaths of three of his colleagues and threats against his own life, Haro knows he has every reason to walk away. "It's easier to look the other way and not cover this issue," he says in Reportero.

"But in the end you would become another accomplice. For the rest of my life, I only want to be a reporter." He writes every week, telling the stories of the residents of northern Mexico during this wave of unprecedented violence.

David Barron Corona:The shooting attack against Blancornelas was prompted by an investigative piece in Zeta describing how the Arellano Félix cartel recruited gunmen from violent street gangs in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood. The leader of the Barrio Logan assassins was a veteran gangster named David Barron Corona, who earned the Arellano Félix family’s loyalty by saving two of the brothers from an ambush. Blancornelas published an article identifying Barron Corona as one of the top cartel enforcers.

A few weeks later, Barron Corona and a team of assassins ambushed Blancornelas while he was on his way to work. The assassination attempt failed only because Barron Corona was killed by one of his own gunmen when a bullet ricocheted and struck him in the eye.

Died with his finger lingering on the trigger

Barron 

VIEW REPORTERO VIDEO

Link to full length video at POV HERE

Sources:  POV at KPBS, Street Gangs, photos Zeta and screenshots from film