Many feel there is no real threat to them concerning illegals and the gang MS-13. The problems and danger has arrived. When will this end.
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Web Posted: 07/13/2007 11:07 PM CDT
Graeme Zielinski
Express-News
Two Texas newspapers temporarily have pulled reporters from the Mexico border after receiving information from U.S. sources that American reporters operating in the bloody region may be marked for death by Mexican drug cartels.
There were conflicting characterizations of the credibility of the threat, which would mark the first time the Mexican cartels have acted so brazenly against journalists from this side of the border.
However, the San Antonio Express-News and the Dallas Morning News had their staffers taking extra precautions after Thursday's tip.
Mexican media already have been muzzled by violent intimidation attacks, including not covering gang-related homicides and removing bylines from the few reports they do print.
Some federal law enforcement sources downplayed the threat's significance.
"We're probably jumping the gun here," one federal source said Friday. "There's no specific threat to any specific reporter."
Meanwhile, a U.S. Embassy official in Mexico cited U.S. law enforcement sources as dubbing the information "credible" that traffickers were going to target foreign journalists.
Editors from the two papers also offered tempered statements, but said their caution was the prudent path in response to the threat, which was first reported to Express-News Border Bureau Chief Mariano Castillo by a federal source Thursday.
Castillo, who has been with the Express-News for four years, is the only regional correspondent based in Laredo who regularly covers cartel activities. He said he was told by his source that a drug cartel was seeking to put out a hit on an American reporter who operates in Laredo and writes about the cartels.
A Dallas Morning News reporter who reports extensively about Mexican drug-related violence but isn't based in Laredo received a similar tip from a different source.
On Friday, Eloy Aguilar, a retired Associated Press reporter who's president of the foreign correspondents' association in Mexico, said he had learned independently from his group's membership that there was a "strong rumor" along the border of a violent threat to American reporters.
"We don't know that the report is credible, and we hope it isn't," Express-News Editor Robert Rivard said Friday. "But until we feel comfortable knowing that, we're going to err on the side of caution and we pulled Mariano out of Laredo last night."
Dallas Morning News Editor Bob Mong said his paper was taking extra, unspecified precautions with its Mexico staff.
"I'm going to treat it as if (the threat) is credible and just be extremely vigilant about when and where we do things and not be predictable in any way," Mong said.
The federal law enforcement source quoted above said Friday that the tip arose during an interview of a federal prisoner as part of a "routine investigation," and did not involve "a specific threat to any specific reporter."
Nonetheless, said Eric Vasys, an FBI spokesman based in San Antonio: "The FBI will do everything in its power to protect the free press from intimidation and violence."
Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, issued a statement about the reported threat.
He said in part, "Threats against journalists, in an attempt to intimidate them from reporting the truth, must be condemned by all of us who understand the important role of a free press in a democratic society."
The sentiment is particularly relevant in Mexico, where in recent years, drug cartels have launched bloody attacks against reporters who have scrutinized their growing power to corrupt the country's democratic institutions. The result has been the silencing of the usually vibrant Mexican media when it comes to cartel activities.
Carlos Lauria, the Americas program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said his organization counted 18 reporters killed in Mexico since 2000.
He said the idea of a cartel killing an American journalist was entirely plausible given the current climate along the border.
Diana Fuentes, editor of the Laredo Morning Times, said the conventional wisdom was the cartels would not want to invite the repercussions of an attack against an American reporter.
"That said, these are not regular people," she said. "These are killers, kidnappers, extortionists. They're not your 'average Joes.'"
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