Mexican Journalist Murdered

(Chihuahua City, Mexico) A veteran Mexican journalist was murdered this week.

From Dallas Morning News:

Authorities said Thursday that organized crime was likely behind the killing of a veteran reporter in Chihuahua, a Mexican state across the border from Texas plagued by violent drug mobs.

The body of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, publisher of the magazine Dos Caras, Una Verdad -- or Two Faces, One Truth -- was found Wednesday on a dirt road about 10 miles from Chihuahua City, said Eduardo Esparza, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office.

Perea Quintanilla, 50, was shot on the lower back and left temple and police found two .45-caliber shell casings near the body, Esparza said.

"We have enough elements to consider people linked to organized crime were involved," Esparza said.

I would propose that the environment in regions of Mexico is not much different from the wild American West of 150 years ago. Ten journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2004, devastating the media's ability to provide in-depth coverage of crime, corruption, and drug trafficking. If reporters want to live, they self-censor their work so as not to upset the criminal gangs.

Companion post at Diggers Realm.