In Mexico, the government and local law enforcement have been battling drug cartels for a long time. According to the BBC Country Profile for Mexico, it is one of the most dangerous countries in the world in terms of media. Reporters Without Borders states,
"Since 2000, scores of journalists have been murdered. Drug cartels and corrupt officials are implicated in most of the crimes of violence against journalists, which almost always go unpunished."
This censorship is due to the fear that reporters have of being kidnapped or killed due to reporting details on drug cartel incidents. Although fear is a big part of why reporters censor themselves, limited flow of public information adds to this. Local authorities fail to provide proper police reports and according to safety protocols, reporters should only report the simplest official facts. According to Indexoncensorship.org,
“It has been an uphill battle to try to get precise data from the local authorities. Sometimes we get information from three government agencies, and they all contradict each other.”
Up until 2014, Mexico City journalists had been untouched by the drug cartels influence on media. They often wrote about criminal organizations without fear and the city itself seemed to be a safe bubble. All of this has changed due to one of Mexicos strongest cartels, the Familia Michoacana has descended on Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl at the edge of Mexico City. According to Newsweek,
"Its members began to kidnap and extort, roaming the city in big SUVs and threatening police officers from behind rolled down, blacked-out windows. In the process, the report noted, they infiltrated the police, making it impossible for the mayor of Neza to protect his people. Or the journalists who cover it."
It is known around the world how dangerous the Mexican drug cartels are but it is shocking to see how much influence they have on the countries media and government. It seems to be that the media is controlled by the drug cartels due to striking fear in the reporters and the law enforcement. These two together makes it nearly impossible to post true and in-depth stories about the horrible crimes the drug cartels are committing.