warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Mexican Drug Cartels Wage War On Social Media Journalism

Ryan Faughnder |
September 28, 2011 | 11:06 a.m. PDT

Senior News Editor

The butchering and decapitating of Mexican journalist Maria Elizabeth Macias, whose body was found Saturday, is being seen as an escalation of Mexican drug cartels’ war on reporters and citizens using social media to spread information about the drug war that has killed over 40,000 people since its beginnings in 2006. 

Journalists protest rising violence in Mexico (Knight Foundation, via Creative Commons)
Journalists protest rising violence in Mexico (Knight Foundation, via Creative Commons)

Marcias, who was the editor of Mexican newspaper Primera Hora, was known as “Laredogirl” and encouraged residents to put out information about the cartels. A message found with Macias’ body may signal a new stage in the cartels’ efforts to stem the flow of information on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, according to The Financial Times.

The FT carries a transcript of the letter from her killers, which reads, “Nuevo Laredo Live and [other] social networking sites, I’m the ‘Laredo Girl’ and I’m here because of my reports, and yours. For those who don’t want to believe, this happened to me because of my actions...”

The drug conflict, which has reached civil war levels of violence, has threatened cities along the Texas-Mexican border.

A report produced by Texas’ department of agriculture and authored by retired Major General Robert Scales and retired General Barry McCaffrey describes the scale of the conflict (via Wired):

During the past two years the state of Texas has become increasingly threatened by the spread of Mexican cartel organized crime. The threat reflects a change in the strategic intent of the cartels to move their operations into the United States. In effect, the cartels seek to create a “sanitary zone” inside the Texas border -- one county deep -- that will provide sanctuary from Mexican law enforcement and, at the same time, enable the cartels to transform Texas’ border counties into narcotics transshipment points for continued transport and distribution into the continental United States. To achieve their objectives the cartels are relying increasingly on organized gangs to provide expendable and unaccountable manpower to do their dirty work. These gangs are recruited on the streets of Texas cities and inside Texas prisons by top-tier gangs who work in conjunction with the cartels.  

Reach Ryan Faughnder here. Follow on Twitter here



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness