Reporters face perils and lure of cartel power
ACAYUCAN, Mexico — For some, Gumaro Perez was an experienced reporter who got on well with locals and earned the nickname “the red man” for his coverage of bloody crimes in Veracruz, one of Mexico’s deadliest states for journalists and civilians alike.
In the eyes of prosecutors, Perez was an alleged drug cartel operative who met a grisly end when he was shot dead Dec. 19 while attending a Christmas party at his 6-year-old son’s school in Acayucan, purportedly by gunmen from a rival gang.
Either way, the brazen daylight killing underscored the blurred-lines nature of how journalism is practiced in much of Mexico, especially in the countryside and in areas where organized crime gangs hold sway over corrupt authorities, terrorize local populations and are largely free to harass and murder reporters with impunity. Reporting in such places often entails writing or uploading photographs to a rudimentary website or Facebook page, or working part-time for a small local media outlet whose meager salaries don’t cover expenses. Holding down a second job is essential. Some moonlight as cabbies or run small businesses. Others may work for a local government. And some, it’s widely believed — though it is said to be a small minority — go on the payroll of a cartel or a corrupt government.
At least 10 Mexican journalists were killed in 2017 in what observers are calling a crisis for freedom of expression, and the risk is especially high for those who operate without editors, company directors or colleagues who could go to bat for them or steer them to institutions that would protect them.
“It certainly does make them more vulnerable,” said JanAlbert Hootsen, Mexico representative for the New Yorkbased Committee to Protect Journalists. He cited in particular the decapitation nearly three years ago of Moises Sanchez, another Veracruz reporter.
Perez, 34, got his start as a journalist working for Diario de Acayucan, the local newspaper in the city of the same name. Set in the steamy lowlands of southern Veracruz, near the Gulf of Mexico, the oil-rich region is a hotly contested drug trafficking corridor that today is said to be disputed by the Zetas and Jalisco New Generation cartels.
Over the years, Gumaro Perez contributed stories to several local media outlets. According to several local journalists interviewed by the Associated Press, Perez also apparently had a different job: Keeping a close watch on what they were publishing about the Zetas and trying to influence their coverage or silence them through intimidation.
Two reporters in Acayucan told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity, that they and others had received threatening calls from Perez. In one, Perez allegedly warned a reporter to “take down” a story or else he would pass their number on “to you know who, so they will get in touch with you.”
Prosecutors said just 24 hours after the killing that Perez was linked to a cartel. But family members deny he was a criminal.