Journalists threatened as Mexico’s drug war grows

William Booth of The Washington Post reports that journalists are finding themselves at increased risk as violence escalates in Mexico’s drug war.  On November 13, Armando Rodríguez, a reporter for El Diario in Ciudad Juarez, was murdered in front of his home.  Earlier in the month, the decapitated head of a drug dealer was placed at the foot of a paperboy statue in the Plaza of Journalists.  “The attacks against journalists, which run from threats hissed on their cellphones to grenades lobbed into their newsrooms, form a new front in the larger war the drug cartels are waging against Mexico’s social and government institutions…Mexican journalists say the threats may serve to muzzle their investigations and stop them from naming names. They also suggest that the cartels are attacking them to demonstrate their own power.”