Relatives of journalist Juan Carlos Muniz attend his funeral in Fresnillo, Zacatecas State, Mexico. Muniz, who covered crime for the online news site Testigo Minero was killed on March 4, 2022 Heidi Montero/AFP via Getty Images (v @niemanlab)
BY MARCELA TURATI• REPORTING AT RISK• JULY 12, 2022
Every time a reporter is killed, his or her death explodes in the hearts of the country’s other journalists — like an earthquake with expanding effect. It doesn’t matter whether they knew the victim or not. Each murder revives feelings of fear, terror, desperation, rage, and sadness that accumulate over time.
Every time a reporter is killed in Mexico, those of us who have organized to respond to this type of emergency send group messages from our cellphones in which we all ask each other, “Are you OK?”
For the reporters who live in the same city as the murdered colleagues, we ask if they need help paying funeral costs, circulating a political petition on social media, or mounting a protest. And above all, lately, do they need therapy for the trauma?
Wherever the latest killing happens, all of us who have had the experience of burying our colleagues must re-live the memories of fear, sadness, rage, and impotence. The impact is not limited to the families and friends of the victim. It opens a gash in the whole community.
For the last two decades, journalists have been confronted with the fact that you can be killed simply for doing your job, for investigating subjects that someone finds inconvenient. The authorities do not seriously investigate these crimes — 95 percent of the cases since 2011 remain unsolved. Journalists have become more anxious about their safety and their future, struggling with the trauma of losing colleagues.
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