New Stuff

Here's a piece about the wave of killings of journalists in Mexico. Highlights:

More troubling than Calderon’s failure to enact the law is what it represents: a lack of genuine interest in protecting journalists, evident across the country at every level of government. (However, journalists are not alone in this: the fact that roughly 80 percent of all murders go unsolved demonstrates a lack of interest in justice for victims, of whatever profession.) As the failure of the special prosecutor demonstrates, merely adding new agencies into the mix is unlikely to change anything.

Moreover, while the plan to give investigators an added push and extra resources to track down those who attack journalists is laudable, it’s worth noting that the authorities already have all of the legal tools they need to do this. Anyone convicted of murder faces a lengthy prison sentence in Mexico. If the local authorities made a point of concentrating their resources disproportionately on those who attack reporters, making the conviction rate in such case higher, than criminal groups facing a journalistic nuisance might think twice before resorting to violence.

That is, after all, the biggest reason that attacks on journalists, even when they publish damning information about criminal operations, are so rare in more developed countries: such crimes place a great deal of pressure on the government to solve them, which, in turn, makes a conviction more likely still. In short, it’s not in criminals’ interest to target reporters.

And here's a piece following up on the investigation into the arrest of Tomás Yarrington.