IRE History | Recent Press Releases | IRE focuses on future of border reporting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Brant Houston, 573-882-2042

Dec. 16, 2004

IRE works with Mexican organizations to focus on the future of border reporting

By Lise Olsen, The Houston Chronicle and Brant Houston, IRE

More than 80 journalists gathered in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, at a November conference sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors and other organizations.

"Meet Us at the Border: An investigative workshop for Mexican and U.S. reporters" gave journalists the opportunity to share techniques and knowledge and create a web of support that will help build better border investigations.

The participants came from media as far east as Matamoros/Brownsville and as far west as Tijuana/San Diego, including journalists who cover nearly all of the invisible line that separates and connects the United States and Mexico.

Five Mexican journalists have been killed in the past year - the worst tally of any Latin American country in 2004. Two of them were top editors at border newspapers. One, Roberto Mora, was the editor of El Mañana in Nuevo Laredo and an original member of the conference planning committee.

In two days of intense sessions in Nuevo Laredo, many reporters and editors talked about how they feel pressure or even fear in the region that is, in some ways, becoming a country unto itself: Borderworld.

Many newsgathering organizations that cover the border - on both sides - are small. The organizations they cover and attempt to investigate can be huge: multinational firms that run the factories and pollute the air and water; the massive political organizations of Mexico's PRI, organized crime on both sides of the border and accompanying political corruption of all stripes.

It is a place where people disappear; sometimes their corpses are dissolved in vats of acid. A U.S. citizen, and suspect in the murder of Mora, is beaten to death in jail a few days before a key public hearing. Money disappears for public projects and poor public officials suddenly become land barons.

That's why IRE worked with the Center for Ethical Journalism in Mexico (CEPET for its name in Spanish) and Periodistas de Investigacion, which IRE helped begin in the mid-1990s to put on this conference. The border conference received support from the Houston Chronicle, El Mañana and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Panelists included Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News; John Burnett, National Public Radio; Valerie Godines, The Orange County Register; Pedro Armendares, Periodistas de Investigacion; Molly Molloy, La Guia and New Mexico State University; Lorena Figueroa, Diario de Juárez; Brant Houston, Investigative Reporters and Editors; Ginger Thompson, The New York Times; Leonarda Reyes, CEPET and formerly with Reforma, El Norte and TV Azteca; Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle; and Ninfa Deander, El Mañana.

Topics included the environment, crime, storytelling techniques, Internet tools, reporter safety, and obstacles and opportunities for border journalism.

As part of a new initiative, IRE is increasing the number of tipsheets available in Spanish, which is critical for reporters on the U.S. side as well as in Mexico. IRE intends to increase its membership along the border and the Nuevo Laredo conference brought more members to IRE.

This year's Encuentro en la frontera - the third such event IRE helped sponsor - is a step toward making that change. Contact IRE if you would like to be part of that effort or send in your stories or tipsheets if you have things to share.