Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century

by Celeste González de Bustamante, Jeannine E. Relly

Mott KTA Journalism and Mass Communication Research Award, Kappa Tau Alpha
Tankard Book Award, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
Knudson Latin America Prize, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Since 2000, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico. Today the country is one of the most dangerous in the world in which to be a reporter. In Surviving Mexico , Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine E. Relly examine the networks of political power, business interests, and organized crime that threaten and attack Mexican journalists, who forge ahead despite the risks. Amid the crackdown on drug cartels, overall violence in Mexico has increased, and journalists covering the conflict have grown more vulnerable. But it is not just criminal groups that want reporters out of the way. Government forces also attack journalists in order to shield corrupt authorities and the very criminals they are supposed to be fighting. Meanwhile some news organizations, enriched by their ties to corrupt government officials and criminal groups, fail to support their employees. In some cases, journalists must wait for a “green light” to publish not from their editors but from organized crime groups. Despite seemingly insurmountable constraints, journalists have turned to one another and to their communities to resist pressures and create their own networks of resilience. Drawing on a decade of rigorous research in Mexico, González de Bustamante and Relly explain how journalists have become their own activists and how they hold those in power accountable.

Genres: Nonfiction

344 pages, Hardcover

Published July 20, 2021

Reviews

[Robin Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surviving Mexico addresses one of the most important human rights issues in our times, attacks and threats against journalists. This is a co-written book by a journalism professor and a public policy professor who is a journalist. The book is the result of a 10-year process and covers 2000-2020 and is a relatively straightforward examination of the perils of working as a journalist in contemporary Mexico especially since attacks on them spiked in 2006. The author uses intensive interviews and oral histories of dozens of journalists throughout the country to paint a detailed and in-depth look. The book doesn’t minimize the challenge to human rights presented by international drug trafficking and presents a straightforward account of the dangers Mexican journalists face. The frame is case studies that can illuminate violence against journalists globally.

[esmo.xoxo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does hurt a lot, especially because it is no fiction but simply the reality. Thank u for giving them a voice.