Shocking

Reporters Flee Mexican Violence

What happens when media too scared to report?

Violence between warring drug cartels along the Mexico border has spooked reporters, leaving daylight shoot-outs and vicious murders unreported. “You begin to wonder what the truth is,” one resident of the embattled town of Reynosa told The New York Times. “Is it what you saw, or what the media and the officials say? You even wonder if you were imagining it.” According to the paper, attacks on reporters in the area have never been worse. Newsrooms have been shot up, and reporters have been told to keep quiet—or else. “They mean what they say,” one local reporter said. “I’m censoring myself. There’s no other way to put it. But so is everybody else.”