October 25 2011 – A dispatch for Time from a recent trip to Veracruz: In touristy Veracruz, Mexico, drug-related violence has spiked. After a recent wave of 80 killings, the federal government sent troops to patrol the city. But many still don’t feel safe See the video here on Time.com
October 19 2011 – Latest dispatch for AFP from my recent trip to Veracruz. Journalism in Mexico is under fire. As drug-related violence grows, so does the danger for reporters trying to cover it, often forcing them to flee, bow to outside influences or face the consequences. In the city of Veracruz, journalists are feeling [...]
You may remember this story I did a few months ago on survival techniques for journalists. I also produced a video on that course for the non-profit that runs it, Article 19, which you can see here as well as on their website.
Daniel Dominguez, one of the hard-worked crime reporters on El Diario, the biggest newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, was kind enough to let me spend the day with him last week. Here’s the report I produced for AFP, which you can also see here on YouTube. The same video is also embedded below, in case of [...]
Some images from today’s ‘March for Peace’ in Mexico City protesting President Felipe Calderon’s ‘war’ again Mexico’s drug cartels and organized crime networks
Raymundo Arellano wears a pair of dog tags around his neck. His name, blood type and next of kin have been indented on the silver plates.
“My greatest fear is that I’ll be killed and they’ll bury me somewhere and no one will recognize my remains,” he says.
February 25th 2011 – Mexico’s migrant monarch butterflies in the state of Michoacan see less visitors as tourists are put off by press reports of narco violence. After being fired for asking Mexico President Felipe Calderon to respond to rumors that he has an alcohol problem, outspoken broadcaster and journalist Carmen Aristegui returned to the airwaves. And drug-related violence for the first time claimed the life of a US security agent – we ask what it means for US/Mexico relations.
Arturo Perez, a freelance cameraman based in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, was recognised for his work last night at the Rory Peck Awards on London’s South Bank.
To all of those in Mexico and around the world, I thought you might be interested in this post on my generic TheVideoReporter.com site about a documentary film by filmmakers Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan making into the final for the Rory Peck Awards.
Back in May 2008, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials rounded up 389 undocumented workers in the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The raid was the largest in U.S history. Two weeks later, filmmakers Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan started filming “In the Shadow of the Raid,” a documentary film showing at [...]
The killing of documentary maker Christian Poveda represents a sad loss for a region much in need of greater understanding.
Reports have surfaced that French photographer and director Christian Poveda has been shot and killed in El Salvador, possibly by the gangs that his recently released documentary “La Vida Loca (the Crazy Life)” focused on. Reuters reports: Suspected Salvadorean gang members killed French filmmaker Christian Poveda, whose 2008 film “La Vida Loca” crudely depicts the [...]
A T-shirt for sale outside Mexico City’s Stadium Azteca yesterday afternoon, during a World Cup qualifying match between the U.S and Mexico, which Mexico won 2:1.
Mexico’s second annual human rights film festival, supported by a number of organizations here including the Mexico branch of Amnesty International, the Ambulante documentary film project and Mexico City’s Human Rights Commission, opens at the end of the week.
Mexican photographer Carlos Cazalis was one of the winners in this year’s World Press Photo contest. The photographer was given first prize in the Contemporary Issues section for this image he took in São Paulo, Brazil, last year. The photo shows a man sleeping, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, outside São Paulo’s elite [...]
The Dart Center, a Colombia University project for journalists who cover violence, got in touch with me after I published a video report on survival training for journalists in Mexico earlier this year.
For those of you who follow other bloggers here in Mexico City, or are a regular visitor to my links, you will know Daniel Hernandez, creator of Intersections, and an author and journalist living here in Mexico City. Daniel is currently in Los Angeles where he is going to be speaking at MOCA as part [...]
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists reports on journalists working in the northern border town of Ciudad Juarez.
Broadcast live on Ustream, June 24th 2009 Moderator: Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News Panel:Ed Vulliamy, Guardian and Observer journalist and writer Alex Tweddle
Only four of the original 14 people rehired by Grupo Mac to man the News, Mexico City’s struggling English-language newspaper, remain at the title.
The most recently appointed editor at the English language newspaper here in Mexico City the News has left the title after just a week in the job.
Nicaragua’s culture, arts and music scene is the focus of a new magazine launched by two American designers living in the country’s capital, Managua.
Clouds reflected in one of the lakes in Chapultepec Park early this morning.
I wanted to add more details to the dispatch I filed today for the Los Angeles Times and MexicoReporter.com on the changes at the News. There were some details that didn’t seem worth including for the LATimes readers, but I wanted to share them with you here.
Mexico’s only national English-language daily newspaper The News, based here in Mexico City, was bought by a Mexican media company and laid off dozens of staffers over the weekend.
May 30 2009 – My breath is tearing out of my lungs and my leg muscles are screaming for a reprieve. I just scaled a 60-degree hill coated in thorny brambles and poisonous plants whilst being pounded by rain. In the dark. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. Later that night, my fellow journalists and I were kidnapped by masked guerillas who jumped onto our bus.
May 29 2009 – A couple of non-profits got together and ran a course just outside Mexico City this month for 18 journalists living and working here.
Controversial ad campaigns about Mexico seem to keep popping up.
Deanna Dent is an American photographer currently in Mexico City documenting what’s going on at ground level.
I at least expected to see fashionable versions of the blue face masks being combined with the latest clothes labels, but it wasn’t so.
The blood-soaked drama is about to hit U.S. TV screens, and the first episode of the first series goes out April 23 on Univision.
I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it into work this morning. Not because of Mexico’s overloaded public transport system, but because U.S President Barack Obama was expected to arrive on his first visit to Mexico here in the country’s capital.
The performance wasn’t part of Mexico’s traditional Semana Santa but had a cross-border purpose.
Last week, I was invited to speak at the University of Texas Pan America about MexicoReporter.com, violence against journalists, the drug war coverage and how new technologies are contributing to the journalism beast. So I went.
Peter Gabriel implored President Calderon to show “real political will, muscle and budget” in investigating the hundreds of unsolved murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez.
Mexico City’s Museo de la Ciudad is playing host to a photojournalism exhibition — Expofotoperiodismo — that features nearly 50 photos from 2008.
Albinos in Mexico and the “human tragedy” of Mexican society were focuses of the winning entries in one the country’s longest-running photography competitions, the results of which are now on display in Mexico City’s impressive Centro de Imagen.
Violence against journalists in Mexico is nothing new but “Voces Silenciadas” broadens the debate around the persecution of journalists to encompass the bigger issues of media ownership and the relationship between the media and Mexico’s political powers.
AFP: Mexico City struggles with waste disposal
AFP: Activists under fire in Mexico
AFP: Ambulance attacked in Ciudad Juarez
Time: Evidence of Killings and Disappearances by Mexico’s Security Forces
AFP: Mexicans honor drug war victims on Day of the Dead
Time: In Veracruz, the troops move in and tourists stay away
