Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly, journalism professors based at the University of Arizona, spent the last decade collecting dozens of oral histories from journalists working along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Mexican states hit hard by drug violence. They wanted to learn how reporters, editors, and newspaper owners were surviving and adapting to an unprecedented wave of threats, attacks, and murders perpetrated by cartels and corrupt government officials that have made Mexico one of the world’s most dangerous places to practice journalism. This year, they released a portion of their archives, and produced a book filled with stories of horror—and of hope, Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century (University of Texas Press).
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Texas Observer: At many points in the last 20 years, journalists hoped that the wave of murders of Mexican journalists—which accelerated rapidly in states along the Texas border in 2007—would slow or even stop. Mexico made it a federal crime to kill a journalist or civil-rights activist and created a protection program. Other organizations created safe houses so journalists could quickly relocate within Mexico or abroad. Did these extreme measures work?
