http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/31632
May 2, 2005, 1:00AM

In Mexico, some stories can't be told
Fear dictates news as drug gangs send a message to media: back off, or die
By IOAN GRILLO
Chronicle Foreign Service
RESOURCES
VICTIMS

Since 2004, six Mexican journalists have been killed and another has disappeared:
• Guadalupe GarcÃÂ*a Escamilla: 39, a crime reporter in Nuevo Laredo who died in a hospital on April 17 from nine bullet wounds.
• Raúl Gibb Guerrero: 53, owner of La Opinión newspaper in Poza Rica, which covered organized crime and drug dealing, was shot dead April 8 by four gunmen outside his home.
• Alfredo Jiménez Mota: 26, a reporter for El Imparcial in Hermosillo, disappeared April 2 after writing about plans by drug traffickers to kill government officials.
• Gregorio RodrÃÂ*guez: 33, a photographer for El Debate in Mazatlán, gunned down Nov. 28, 2004, while eating at an open-air food stand.
• Francisco Arratia: A columnist for newspapers in Tamaulipas state, beaten and tortured on Aug. 31, 2004. A suspected hit man linked by authorities to the Gulf Cartel was arrested.
• Francisco J. Ortiz: Publisher of the weekly Zeta of Tijuana, shot while driving on a city street June 22, 2004. Ortiz was working with the Inter American Press Association to bring to justice the killers of Héctor Félix Miranda, the weekly's previous editor.
• Roberto Mora: News editor of El Mañana of Nuevo Laredo, stabbed to death on March 19, 2004. The newspaper said its coverage of drug gangs led to Mora's killing.

Sources: Inter American Press Association, Committee to Protect Journalists

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - Newspaper publisher Ramon Cantu sadly looked up at a portrait of his grandfather, who founded a family-owned daily called El Mañana back in 1932 in this arid border city.

"My grandfather was a fighter. He struggled to report the whole story," Cantu said, sitting at his desk below the portrait in El Mañana's offices.

"I want to honor his name," he said. "But these days it's not safe to dig or investigate. Now the news agenda here is ruled by fear."

The fear is shared by many journalists in this city of 500,000, nearly destroying their passion for reporting and eating into their personal lives.

They are scared of ending up like Guadalupe GarcÃÂ*a Escamilla. The 39-year-old radio reporter was shot by an attacker as she walked to her office and died of her wounds April 17 after lingering in intensive care for 12 days. Federal investigators, who have not made an arrest in the killing, suspect that drug-trafficking cartels were responsible .

GarcÃÂ*a was the 48th Mexican journalist to have been killed since 1987, according to the Miami-based Inter American Press Association. Many of the slain reporters, photographers, editors and publishers covered organized crime and narcotics smuggling in the border region.

Murder has become just one of the tactics that the drug gangs use to send a message to the news media to back off. The cartels also try to intimidate journalists by sending them anonymous death threats, snatching them off the streets for face-to-face meetings or beating them, members of the media said.

Balancing the threat of lead is the offer of silver. Some are paid off to influence their coverage, the reporters said.

The mixture of murder, intimidation and bribery has effectively curbed local media investigations into drug-related violence in northern Mexico, journalists say.

"Unfortunately, self-censorship is now a common practice among reporters in the Mexico border region," said Ricardo Trotti, press freedom director at the Inter American Press Association.

Just 'basic facts' in reports
Journalists say the constant intimidation seeds a paranoia that becomes incessant in their lives. Many reporters who were interviewed for this report requested that their names not be used because they feared repercussions. Many also asked to be interviewed in secluded places because they were concerned about who could be listening.

Vicente Rangel, a radio reporter who replaced the slain GarcÃÂ*a on the police beat of Nuevo Laredo's Stereo 91 radio, said he has become extremely cautious when broadcasting accounts of gangland murders.

"You just report the basic facts, no elaboration," Rangel said. "You don't mention who could be behind the killing or look for extra sources."

Mexican federal prosecutors say 40 people have been killed in gangland violence since Jan. 1 in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo. Most of the killings stem from a turf war between the powerful Gulf Cartel, whose enforcers are called the Zetas, and an equally powerful gang from the Pacific state of Sinaloa led by prison escapee Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The names of the Gulf Cartel or Zetas are seldom mentioned in Nuevo Laredo's newspapers, or in radio or television coverage of the violence. Journalists said mobsters have warned them not to use the names.

Sometimes the threats come in calls to reporters' or editors' cell phones. Other times, gangsters force journalists into cars and drive them around town while they menace them, sometimes assaulting them. The technique has become so common that reporters have developed a special word for it â€â€