A few days ago, Diario de Juarezâone of the few Mexican newspapers to push back a bit against narco-censorship, and whose editorial staffers have been shot for their effortsâpublished a pleading editorial to the cartels, titled "What Do You Want from Us?"
We'd like you to know that we're communicators, not psychics. As such, as information workers, we ask that you explain what it is you want from us, what you'd intend for us to publish or to not publish, so that we know what is expected of us.You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling, despite the fact that we've repeatedly demanded it from them... We don't want any more dead. We don't want any more injured or any more threats. It is impossible to exercise our function in these conditions. Indicate to us, therefore, what you expect of us as a news outlet.
That's beyond depressingâit's heartbreaking. Even Mahmoud "AJ" Ahmadinejad can't get press like that.
Then Al Giordano, aka Narco News, one of the best, gutsiest news sources on the drug war, responded with a scathing editorial of his own.
Read the whole thingâespecially the part about how the New York Times was duped into playing political hit-man for some Mexican interests in the 1990s by accepting a bunch of documents, typing them up into a story that was part true and part libel, calling it an "investigation," winning a Pulitzer, and then having to file "an unprecedented correction of its own Pulitzer-winning story."
But this passage is the marrow of the matter:
In the first years of Narco News, it probably wouldnât surprise anyone to hear that we were approached a number of times by people we reasonably believed might be intermediaries for different drug trafficking organizations, offering gifts of expensive ads on our pages for unnamed legitimate companies. âWe donât accept advertising,â I replied.âBut donât you want money?â was the typical response. âCouldnât you use it to further your cause?â
âSure, but not that kind of money, because it comes with strings attached.â
I would typically give what I call âthe Godfather speechâ to these presumed intermediaries. It went like this: âTell your boss that we appreciate his respect and we mean no disrespect by turning down the offer. Of course we have also heard of the âsilver or leadâ stories where journalists or public officials are first offered money and next threatened with bullets if we donât do as asked. If that is the case, just send someone over to kill me, right away, because weâre never going to take advertising or any other money meant to influence our coverage.
But also please tell your boss that we think it would be an error to kill us because he now knows we wonât do it for his competitors either. Weâre the ones telling the whole truth about government involvement in the drug trade and our editorial policy favors legalization, so that their children and grandchildren can grow up to be congressmen, judges, or even president: just like Rockefellers and Kennedys whose forefathers made their fortunes as alcohol traffickers.â
And then:
As a journalist, I would never call the cops or ask governments for protection. To do so would be to offer them a legitimacy they neither have nor deserve. And with all due respect to the colleagues at El Diario, their open letter at multiple points reads like an appeal to the government for help. Thatâs like seeking the protection of one mafia against another. And only makes it more likely that the competing forces will see them as not neutral in the war.At Narco News, weâre not neutral either, but we are partisan in a very different way, and have always disclosed it: Our editorial position, stated since day one, opposes the drug war and its foundation of drug prohibition. Thatâs not exactly a position of guaranteed safety either, but at least if it comes to the point where one or more of us die for doing our jobs, we will have gone down proudly in a worthy struggle, and not for a pendejada of seeking fame and fortune by pulling off informational hits on one group of criminals on behalf of another, and certainly not in service to the biggest, really the only, drug cartels that exist: the governments that propagate these violent acts through a policy called prohibition.
God bless you and keep you, Al Giordano. For your sake and for ours.