Jan-Albert Hootsen/CPJ Mexico Representative
Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ's Mexico representative for the Americas program, works as a correspondent for Dutch newspaper Trouw, and regularly contributes to publications including Newsweek and RTL Nieuws. He is based in Mexico City. Follow her on LinkedIn.
When it comes to protecting journalists, Mexico’s safety mechanism comes up short
Gildo Garza sighs when he speaks of the institution that is supposed to protect him. “I feel disappointed, depressed, desperate, and alone,” he said. “I no longer have any hope in a system that was supposed to help me build up a new life or get my old life back.”
Press freedom summit urges Mexico to reform journalist protections
On June 18, more than 400 people converged in Mexico City for CPJ’s Mexico Press Freedom Summit. Energized by a sense that the country is at a point of profound political change under the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the conference delved into the threats for Mexican journalists.
Mexico’s press question president’s commitment to press advertising reform
When Andrés Manuel López Obrador won Mexico’s presidential elections last year with a promise to drastically cut the millions of dollars the government spends on press advertising each year, it appeared to signal the end to an opaque system that has been criticized as a way for governments to encourage favorable coverage.
López Obrador’s anti-press rhetoric leaves Mexico’s journalists feeling exposed
During his daily press conference on April 15, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told reporters, “If you go too far, you know what will happen.” López Obrador clarified his remarks the following day, saying he meant that the public would hold reporters who unfairly criticize the government to account. But in a country where…
In Mexico, ‘narcopolitics’ is a deadly mix for journalists covering crime and politics
It was 3 p.m. on January 13 when Carlos Domínguez Rodríguez stopped at a traffic light in Nuevo Laredo, in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Two men approached the car of the well-known newspaper columnist, opened the driver’s door, and stabbed him more than 20 times in front of his family.
Mexico’s special prosecutor says FEADLE is improving, but impunity continues
For approximately two months, Mexico’s office of the Special Prosecutor for Attention for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) led a nomadic existence after its building was damaged in a September 19 earthquake that killed almost 400 people in and around Mexico City. The agency now has a new home, but the natural disaster served…
On the front lines of reporting in Guerrero, Mexico’s most-violent state
Several months ago, during a three-day journalism congress in Mexico City, a reporter from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero took out his cell phone and scrolled through a series of pictures. The photos showed teenagers smiling at the camera, carrying automatic rifles, and sporting bulletproof vests.