Mexico is the most dangerous country for journalists in the Western Hemisphere. It’s a phrase often used to describe the context Mexican journalists live and work in. Those following international news have glanced countless times over stories about reporters being kidnapped, threatened, tortured and killed, more often than not in complete impunity.
The often inconceivable levels of violence against reporters grab the headlines, but there is more to press freedom and journalism in Mexico. Much more.
Reporters in this country deal with everything from criminal gangs and corrupt officials, illegal surveillance, governments seeking to bribe them into submission, lack of money and defamation lawsuits to online threats and harassment.
But the story of Mexican journalists is also one of dynamic, intrepid investigative reporting, young journalists harnessing the power of data and access to public information to uncover the patterns that betray staggering levels of corruption and new alliances of online publications that challenge old power structures and legacy media. Journalists and press freedom activists, meanwhile, attempt to support the press every way they can, often risking their own mental and physical wellbeing in the process.
Many of these stories remain largely untold to a global audience beyond Mexico itself. The story of press freedom, journalists and media here is the story of the journalists themselves: their drives and ambitions, the challenges they face, the impact of violence and threats, their interactions with their colleagues and those in power, the spaces they occupy or are driven out of.
Plumas Bajo Fuego is Spanish for ‘Pens Under Fire’. This column and newsletter seeks to expand on the existing body of work about journalism and press freedom in Mexico, adding briefings, background, original reporting, interviews and much more.
About the author
Jan-Albert Hootsen (Goes, the Netherlands, 1982) is a Dutch journalist based in Mexico City since 2009. He is the Mexico Representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and regularly contributes to Dutch newspaper Trouw, America Magazine - The Jesuit Review, and others. He holds a BA in Language and Culture Studies from Utrecht University and a BA in Journalism from Fontys University for Applied Sciences in Tilburg, both in the Netherlands. He speaks Dutch, English, Spanish, German and some Italian and Portuguese.
