Journalists Work to cover their stories and stay alive
Staying alive and unharmed is the main concern of
journalists in Mexico, Honduras and Colombia. But the sounds of silence of
journalists who muzzle themselves as a self-defense mechanism may be as much of
a concern.
.
That was the consensus of journalists from the three
countries who gathered in the northern port city of Barrancabermeja, Colombia
in late April for an international forum on Security, Safety and
Self-Censorship.
“We have to find ways that journalists can report on
sensitive topics without exposing themselves to unnecessary risks,” said Urban
Lofqvist, director of the Swedish
chapter of Reporters Without Borders, an organizer of the event. Other sponsors included Colombia’s
Foundation for Press Freedom, or FLIP, the Swedish chapter of Reporters with
Borders and IMS.
Barrancabermeja was an apt spot for the forum; the city has
been a historical hot spot for Colombia’s internal conflict and journalists
here still feel the heat when they report on violence related to politics or
organized crime.
“In Santander, there are cases where journalists do not go
into depth in stories about situations that impact the society; when they
(might) became targets,” said veteran journalist Diro César Gonzalez, editor
and owner of the Barrancabermeja weekly,
“La Tarde.,” Barrancabermeja is located in the
department of Santander.
Gonzalez has been under protective guard from a government
security team since 2006, when he first began receiving death threats. He is
protected under a Colombia law that reviews the situations of journalists and
members of 15 other vulnerable groups, providing bodyguards and bulletproof
vehicles for those who need them.
It’s why Gonzalez can hide in plain sight, celebrating his
birthday with forum attendees at a local restaurant. “I love being a journalist and I really don’t know how to do
anything else.,“ he said. “Not even being a janitor.”
But his light-hearted remarks don’t mean Gonzalez takes the
deadly business of journalism lightly. Colombian journalists may have a slight
edge on their colleagues in Honduras and Mexico, because they do get some
protection.
Mexico’s legislature just passed a bill that would allow
journalists to request federal intervention in attacks against them, and is
pending approval by the president.
There is talk, but no action, about similar efforts in
Honduras.
At the forum, participants agreed no journalist in
Honduras, Mexico or Colombia has it easy. In Mexico, attacks against journalists
are so common that many news media no longer run stories about drug
cartels.
The hacked-up bodies of photojournalist Daniel
Martinez Balzasua, 22, and another young man, were found April 24 in Saltillo,
in northern Mexico, the latest victim of an apparent drug-cartel killing. Coincidentally, this was the same day
the Barrancabermeja forum took place.
The Committee to Protect Journalists
said in a February report that 12 Mexican journalists went missing in 2006-2012
and 14 were killed because of their work. Mexico's federal Human Rights
Commission says 81 journalists have been killed since 2000.
In Honduras, with the world’s highest homicide rate – drug gangs also have journalists under
the gun. According to ???? 19 journalists have been killed since
1992, with 15 of those cases never investigated.
“Covering hard issues is a part of my life,” said Xiomara
Orellana, who has been an investigative reporter with for Diario La Prensa of
San Pedro Sula, Honduras for eight years., with no intentions of
stopping. “One learns to live with danger. The difference is that in Colombia
there are some programs that offer protection. We don’t have anything. You
survive as you can. You have to live with fear. “
Her colleague, Javier Valdez Cárdenas, a founding reporter
for the weekely RioDoce in Sinoloa, Mexico, says it is important to remember that every deadly incident
from the drug cartels impacts people as individuals.
“To just count the dead is to the contribute to people’s
problems,” he said. “Talk about people not numbers. We do the journalism that
is possible in impossible conditions.”
Colombian journalists
have learned to do this. In the northern Columbia city of Monteria,
Ginna Morelo, editor of El Meridiano de
Cordoba and her colleague, Nydia Serrano, of the competing El Universal, say threats come
regularly. In January, two journalists from another Monteria newspaper had to
leave the country after they received death threats from members of a drug
gang.
Serrano noted six of the 16 journalists killed in Colombia
during the past 20 years were from her home state of Cordoba. “What’s important now is for the story
to get out,” she said. “So for safety, we don’t think about exclusivity
anymore, but about sharing the information for our own security.”
Morelo says when she goes into the field to cover a story she checks in with the
town priest and schoolteachers before she makes her rounds so they know she is
there. She is also in constant
cell phone communication with her desk.
The number of journalists is killed is down, and the threat,
and we feel more secure.,” she said. The statistics are correct, but that’s
because we don’t tell about 80 percent of what happens in this country.”
In fact, self-censorship has become the name of the game. A
recent survey of 700 journalists in Colombia by the Antonio Narino Project
found that 79 percent of them admit to engaging in self-censorship for their
physical safety, or even just to keep advertisers happy or to hold onto their
jobs.
Colombia’s FLIP has tried to get around the issue by helping
journalists to publish their work away form their home turf. “We work with some local journalists
who had a problem with self-censorship,” said Andrés Morales, FLIP executive
director. “Their medium did not
publish their work for security reasons.
What we did was create agreements or alliances with national media or
other outlets so the work could be published.
I’ve had my own exposure to dangerous times in my days as an
international correspondent in Central America. But it was nothing like my
colleagues faced then or now this people in the cities and countries that are
their home.
“I’m not saying we don’t run risks, but it is under other
conditions,” said Arturo Wallace, a Colombia-based correspondent for the
BBC. I”The political cost of
expelling an international correspondent is much higher than taking action
against a national journalist.”
International correspondents may be tough, but when the
going gets tough, well we get to leave. Not these people, who as Mexico’s
Javier Valdez Cárdenas says, continue to do “the journalism that is possible in
impossible conditions.”
