Narco-Censorship.: Mexico's Drug Gangs Are Silencing The Mexican Media

Placards with pictures of slain journalists are seen this month at a Mexico City rally by journalists protesting the violence they face. (Ronaldo Schemidt, AFP/Getty Images / August 7, 2010)

Under Threat From Mexican Drug Cartels, Reporters Go Silent -- L.A. Times

Journalists know drug traffickers can easily kidnap or kill them — and get away with it.

Reporting from Reynosa, Mexico — A new word has been written into the lexicon of Mexico's drug war: narco-censorship.

It's when reporters and editors, out of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth in a country where members of the press have been intimidated, kidnapped and killed.

That big shootout the other day near a Reynosa shopping mall? Convoys of gunmen whizzed through the streets and fired on each other for hours, paralyzing the city. But you won't read about it here in this border city.

Read more ....

My Comment: I have two close friends who have been living in Mexico for the past 25 years .... and for the past three years they have been telling me that Mexico's drug war is far worse than what the media is telling us.

Reading the above L.A. Times article ..... I can now understand why.