Journalism in Tijuana Mixes Danger and Deadlines

TIJUANA —  The man calling the offices of the daily newspaper Al Dia was direct.

“If you want money,” he said, “we’ll tell you where to find it. If you want to be martyrs, keep on doing what you’re doing.”

Reporter Jose Enrique Garcia, author of a number of provocative articles about alleged links between drug trafficking and government officials, began carrying a pistol and discovered a new pastime: practicing at a local target range.

In this case, there was no violence. Instead, journalists say opponents of the newspaper’s activist style pressured the owner to sell last May to a local industrialist less inclined to such combative journalism. Garcia and a number of colleagues jumped to El Heraldo, a feisty afternoon daily.

Style of Coverage

Welcome to the helter-skelter, sometimes dangerous, generally exasperating and often exhilarating world of journalism as practiced in Mexico’s most populous border city. It’s a singular mixture of “The Front Page” and the Soviet Union’s Pravda, of journalistic bravado in the face of danger, of personal vendettas and political bouquets masquerading as news stories.

To a large extent, the style of news coverage evident in the dozen or so local publications circulating here reflects the state of the craft throughout Mexico. But Tijuana’s location on the border, with its dynamic economy and heterogenous population, has resulted in a few novel twists--for instance, one weekly is printed in the United States, partially for protection, and several journalists supplement their meager incomes by also selling advertising.

Last month, international attention was focused on Tijuana journalism when shotgun-wielding assailants murdered a well-known columnist and satirist, Hector (Gato) Felix Miranda--comparable in local fame to Jimmy Breslin in New York--as he drove to work.

Last week, police arrested the suspected trigger-man--a guard at Caliente Racetrack here and a former state policeman--and announced that they are seeking an alleged accomplice, the track’s ex-security chief.

There has been widespread speculation in the opposition press and among others that the suspects are taking the fall for political or economic power brokers who ordered the killing in response to items in Felix’s biting column. Police have denied any kind of cover-up.

Felix, co-editor and co-founder of the weekly Zeta, was the first journalist murdered in more than 25 years in Baja California. Elsewhere in Mexico, such acts are more commonplace: In the last 16 years, more than two dozen newsmen have been murdered throughout the country, according to a committee of journalists in Mexico City. The killers are rarely found, journalists say.

While the murder of a journalist is an extreme case, journalists say that other means of control--threats, economic pressure and buyouts of newspapers by powerful interests--are commonplace. Libel and slander laws are used less frequently than in the United States, journalists say.

Because of political and economic pressure, turnover among newspaper owners is rapid here. Discerning readers have to be ever-alert: Today’s muckrakers may be tomorrow’s apologists.

Ownership Is Critical

Ownership is critical, as is demonstrated by Al Dia’s evolution from hard-hitting exposes to pro-government pronouncements. A former governor of Baja California is part owner of two dailies here; the current governor is a close friend of the owners of two other dailies.

As in the United States, most journalists here say they strive for objectivity. But the long arms of Mexico’s long-dominant ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, often extend to the press.

In addition, the government controls the nation’s supply of newsprint, and more subtle forms of official pressure have long been realities for newspapers here. However, observers say that varying points of view and independent journalism are much more common in Mexico now than 20 years ago.

“There is freedom of the press in Mexico,” says J. Jesus Blancornelas, editor and co-founder of Zeta, whose unrelenting exposes about corruption and government mismanagement have drawn praise and condemnation alike. “But you have to be willing to take the risk.”

Willingness to Take Risk

Blancornelas has shown such willingness. Felix, the murdered columnist, had been Blancornelas’ colleague for many years. Besides co-founding Zeta, they co-edited the weekly. Many fear openly for Blancornelas’ life.

Despite the improvement of Mexican journalism, practices persist in newspapers here and elsewhere in Mexico that seem jarring by U.S. standards. While screaming headlines are common in both countries, particularly in afternoon dailies, newspapers battling in this highly competitive market routinely refer to crime suspects as “vicious thieves” and “rats”--before they have been publicly charged.

After Felix’s alleged killers were named, El Heraldo ran a full-page spread juxtaposing photographs of the murder scene with snapshots of Jorge Hank Rhon, the president of Caliente Racetrack, where the alleged killers worked. Hank, a frequent target of Felix, has denied any part in the killing.

Other customs here are also frowned upon in U.S. journalism; many stem from economic reality. Reporters here typically earn $40 to $70 a week and write as many as eight articles a day. College degrees are unusual among reporters.

Sell Advertising

To supplement their income, Mexican reporters regularly sell advertising on the side, a practice that U.S. journalists say would compromise news coverage. For journalists here, though, the advertisements may be economic necessities.

“It’s difficult to live on reporters’ salaries,” acknowledged Rogelio Lavenant, editor of the afternoon daily El Heraldo, Tijuana’s oldest, which puts its circulation at about 8,000. “Selling advertising doesn’t affect coverage.”

Lavenant and other editors do see a problem with another practice: bribe-taking by journalists. Though few will acknowledge taking payoffs from politicians and others, journalists say the practice is widespread. Miguel Cervantes Sahagun, a reporter for Zeta, recalls being offered a beachside lot “for future considerations.”

“Everyone knows this is going on,” said Cervantes, 28, who supplements his income by writing part time for a number of other publications, including the Los Angeles Times. That is a practice followed by other Tijuana journalists seeking to augment their incomes.

Incentives Offered

Editors say they attempt to lessen that temptation by raising salaries and offering other incentives. At El Mexicano, for instance, Baja California’s dominant daily, reporters can get housing, insurance and other benefits through the newspaper union.

Apart from bribes, Dora Elena Cortes, managing editor of El Heraldo, recalled another kind of corruption involving local journalists: Some were “borrowing” cars from the state judicial police--cars that had been stolen in the United States and confiscated by police. She denounced the practice at a local journalists’ meeting, causing much embarrassment.

“I think it’s happening a lot less now,” Cortes said during an interview at El Heraldo, which is run out of a cramped, smoke-filled office near downtown that is furnished with heavy typewriters and metal desks.

Cortes, perhaps the most well-known and respected woman journalist here, with 13 years experience, is a veteran of the Baja press wars.

Critical Stories

During her tenure at the daily Novedades de Baja California, Cortes wrote a series of articles in 1985 critical of Baja Gov. Xicotencatl Leyva Mortera. Soon afterward, she says, columns attacking her began appearing in El Mexicano, the dominant daily, which has strong links to the government.

“They were trying to discredit me,” Cortes said.

State officials deny involvement in any such campaign. “The articles were written by a journalist completely on his own,” said Miguel Angel Torres, chief spokesman for Gov. Leyva.

Inevitably, discussions about journalistic ethics here turn to the dominant role of El Mexicano, which says its has a daily circulation of 80,000 throughout Baja. The newspaper features a colorful, USA Today-type format and, critics say, a seemingly unshakeable belief in the wisdom and benevolence of Mexican officials.

“We don’t like to be too negative or too positive,” said Enrique Sanchez Diaz, managing editor of El Mexicano, as he sat in his small, glass-walled office, where photographs of the governor, president and presidential candidate were displayed prominently. “We try to maintain an equilibrium.”

Union-Owned Paper

El Mexicano, fully computerized and situated in a spacious office on the city’s outskirts, is owned by the Confederation of Mexican Workers, a large national union that is one of the principal pillars of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Coincidence or not, coverage of official candidates dwarfs articles about opposition candidates.

Each edition of El Mexicano seems to give prominent play to some new government initiative. Recently, for instance, El Mexicano gave front-page play to official efforts to improve the border economy, bolster the beleaguered fishing industry, turn land over to urban squatters and improve loan programs for farmers, among other things.

“Some people have told me they wonder what planet El Mexicano is writing about,” said Lavenant, editor of El Heraldo.

El Mexicano editors defend the newspaper’s independence and objectivity. “We are not oficialistas ,” said Sanchez, the newspaper’s managing editor, using an epithet frequently applied to newsmen who work as government apologists.

No ‘Ethics’

Certainly, no one has placed the oficialista sobriquet on Zeta, run by Blancornelas and, until his murder, Hector Felix. “Blancornelas has no professional ethics,” charged Torres, the governor’s spokesman and a former reporter for El Mexicano.

Blancornelas, the local incarnation of a hard-hitting newspaper tradition that came of age in Mexico in the 1970s, seems to thrive on the criticism. Zeta features a feisty writing style and wide-ranging exposes that reveal everything from drug-trafficking links in government to corruption by local police, from pollution in Ensenada’s bay to alleged murders by the Mexican military--usually relying on unnamed sources.

Blancornelas has persevered despite what he characterizes as extensive official efforts to quiet his voice. He and Felix co-founded Zeta in 1980; its release each Friday is a much-awaited punctuation in the workweek here.

The newspaper’s estimated 70,000 copies are printed in San Diego, which provides a measure of insulation from official seizure of presses and denial of newsprint. Bullet holes on the outside walls of Zeta’s office attest to an early morning machine-gun attack last year by unknown assailants. No one was hurt.

Blancornelas, a bearded, slightly built and deeply religious Roman Catholic who looks more like a “New Age” intellectual than a muckraking editor, refuses to back off from his attacks on government. If Felix’s death was meant as a warning, Blancornelas isn’t taking the hint.

“If I was scared, I would have left here a long time ago,” the bespectacled Blancornelas says.

But the 51-year-old father of three does take precautions. He calls his wife shortly before leaving for home each day. “If I’m not home in the time it takes me,” he explains, “she knows something is wrong.”