About This Report
This report was produced by CPJ’s Americas program.
Carlos Lauría, senior Americas program coordinator, wrote the introduction, “Fighting impunity should be priority for Mexican government.” Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico correspondent, and John Otis, CPJ Andes correspondent, wrote the report. Hootsen wrote the sidebar, “Federal efforts to protect journalists fall short.” Adela Navarro Bello, general director of Mexican weekly Zeta and a member of CPJ’s Americas Advisory Group, wrote the foreword, “Covering corruption in Mexico means living with impunity.” CPJ senior Americas and U.S. researcher Alexandra Ellerbeck contributed research, along with local reporters from Veracruz and Oaxaca state. Miguel Ángel Díaz, editorial director of Plumas Libres in Xalapa, produced two videos to accompany the report, and Pedro Matias, a correspondent for national newsweekly Proceso, contributed to the chapter on Hernández Bautista.
Lauría is CPJ’s chief strategist and spokesperson on press freedom issues in the Americas. He began his journalistic career in Buenos Aires in 1986 and settled in New York in 1994 as U.S. bureau chief for Editorial Perfil, Argentina’s largest magazine publisher. He serves on the board of the Maria Moors Cabot Award for excellence in Latin American journalism, which is sponsored by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Hootsen, who is based in Mexico City, is a correspondent for Dutch newspaper Trouw, and regularly contributes to publications including Newsweek and RTL Nieuws. Otis, who is based in Bogotá, Colombia, works as a correspondent for Time magazine, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. Prior to joining CPJ in 2015, Ellerbeck worked at Freedom House and was a Fulbright teaching fellow at the State University of Pará in Brazil.