Zeta: Free Speech in an Era of Repression
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REVIEWS Zeta: Free Speech in an Era of Repression ARTURO R. CONDE hen MExican jOurnalist Héctor Félix of reporting during both periods: “A journalist was Miranda was killed on April 20, 1988, killed by multiple gunshots . Two women journal- Wseveral thousand gathered in Tijuana to ists were strangled and their naked bodies thrown in protest. They marched through the business district the street . Today a reporter murdered by an armed and amassed outside of the funeral group was buried.” home where the journalist’s body Ruíz’s documentary connects lay. They chanted angry slogans and viewers with the extraordinary men carried banners that called for the and women who risk their lives to re- resignation of the governor of Baja port hard-hitting investigative stories California, Xicoténcatl Leyva Mort- about government and police corrup- era. The protesters wore black rib- tion, and organized crime in Tijuana. bons pinned to their lapels or waved Reportero focuses on the newspaper black scarves. Zeta, which links the violence against Miranda’s body had been found journalists to the censorship and re- that morning slumped inside of his pression of Mexico’s government at blue 1981 Ford LTD. He had been the time of Miranda’s murder, and shot several times in the neck and makes a compelling case that Mex- torso. The journalist was the author ico’s political and legal systems are of the political satire column Un poco complicit in the slaying of journalists de algo (A Little Bit of Something), by allowing their killers to get away which was widely read in Mexico and with complete impunity. REPORTERO printed in the Tijuana-based weekly (REPORTER) Back in 1988, Miranda was the newspaper Zeta, which he co-edited latest victim in a decade that had with Jesús Blancornelas. Directed by Bernardo Ruíz, 2012, 72 claimed the lives of over 30 jour- Twenty-four years later, things mins., reporteroproject.com nalists in Mexico who had been still look very bleak for Mexican covering drug trafficking, govern- journalists. Reportero (Reporter), a ment corruption, and questionable documentary directed by former NACLA staff mem- police practices. Reportero compels viewers to see the ber and documentarian Bernardo Ruíz, exposes pain and indignity of these journalists through the years of government corruption in Mexico that led unfiltered testimonies of Zeta editors and reporters to violence against Mexican journalists in the 1980s who have become targets. and more recent drug war violence against the me- Miranda was the firstZeta journalist killed, but de- dia today. The film begins with a voiceover of recent spite public outcry, it took five years and the election news reports from Mexico that could evoke the perils of a new government before the suspect—Victoriano Medina Moreno, a 37-year-old security guard at the Arturo Conde is the former director of NACLA and a freelance Agua Caliente Racetrack—was charged and arrested. journalist. He covers immigration rights, Latino issues, bilingual The film points out that because the government education, and culture. His articles appear in Univision News, City made no attempt to bring the intellectual authors of Limits, the Spanish newspaper La Opinión, and other publications. Miranda’s killing to justice, Zeta still includes a page 84 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS VOL. 45, NO. 3 in every issue about its co-found- ernment and legal institutions Slain journalist Benjamín Flores is one er’s killing, exposing the Tijuana that failed to uphold public inter- of several reporters covered in Report- millionaire Jorge Hank Rhon— est compelled some journalists to ero. courtesy sergio Haro owner of the racetrack and em- establish independent newspapers ployer of Moreno—as one of the like Zeta. The newspaper’s co- nessmen or politicians,” he says, suspected masterminds. “Why did director, Adela Navarro, says early “and when I worked for them, I one of your bodyguards kill me?” in the film that when the weekly couldn’t write what I saw. I don’t the full-page spread asks of Rhon. was established in 1980, the Insti- mean my own opinions, but what Other media sources support tutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) I witnessed with my own eyes.” Zeta’s quest for justice and reveal made it impossible to publish ar- Blancornelas’s career before Zeta how the killing of journalists like ticles critical of the government. is briefly mentioned, but the film Miranda are still being commit- As a result, she explaines, the only makes it clear that his unbend- ted with impunity. In 2012, the way to practice investigative jour- ing standard to report the truth Committee to Protect Journalists nalism was to “found a newspaper made him, along with Miranda, reported that 64 journalists and that belonged to journalists, inde- the target of government censor- media-related workers have been pendent from corporate, union, or ship and repression as early as the killed in Mexico since 1992, 39 of political interests.” late 1970s. Other news accounts them since President Felipe Calde- The documentary uses archi- document how before Zeta, Blan- rón came to power in 2006 and val film footage from an interview cornelas had launched the Tijuana launched a government offensive with the weekly’s co-director Jesús newspaper Adelante Baja California against Mexico’s powerful drug Blancornelas before his death (ABC) in 1977. After standing up cartels. The killers of 22 of the vic- in 2006 to drive this point even to demands from the state’s gover- tims cited in the report have never further by explaining how vari- nor, Roberto de la Madrid, to fire been brought to justice. ous affiliations undermine public Miranda— whose columns were Ruíz’s documentary chronicles interest. “The newspapers have highly critical of the governor how this collapse of Mexican gov- always been controlled by busi- and local politicians—the state FALL 2012 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 85 government sent police to forcibly lized the printing industry. “In the we read, and how does our inter- seize control of the publication 1980s, PIPSA, the only company est gauge the success and failure under the pretext of a labor dis- that sold paper [in Mexico], was of a newspaper? Recent sales show pute. Blancornelas would have to owned by the government,” Na- how the interest of Zeta’s reader- exile himself to the United States varro says in the film. “If they liked ship has shifted from the politi- for two years until the Mexican what you wrote, they’d sell you cal and social pieces that were the government dropped charges that paper. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t centerpiece of the weekly’s content accused him of fraud in ABC. get any.” Zeta continues to print in to drug-trafficking and organized- After the collapse of ABC, Blan- California in an effort to maintain crime stories. cornelas and Miranda decided its autonomy. “It’s more expensive “When we publish a politi- to found another newspaper and to print in the U.S. Each time the cal story on our front page,” says after they briefly considered call- peso devaluates against the dollar, Blanco, “it doesn’t sell as well as ing the new publication DEF, fol- it weakens us. But it guarantees a narco story. If it were up to the lowing the next three letters after our freedom of expression,” Na- newspaper vendors, the paper ABC, they decided to jump to the varro further explains. would be dripping blood.” This end of the alphabet to Zeta as a Today, with a circulation of perspective reflects a wider trend clear statement that they would about 30,000, Zeta is an anomaly in the Mexican media, which has never let the government silence in comparison with most news- prioritized stories of drug-war ex- them again. papers, which rely heavily on the ecutions, gun battles, and masked Reportero explains how Zeta Internet. Reportero shows viewers soldiers on the streets over impor- was founded during Blancor- how the weekly depends more on tant social issues that focus on po- nelas’s exile in San Diego, Cali- a human network of distribution litical reform and the protection of civil rights. This is particularly dishearten- Every Friday at 4 a.m., bundles of the thick ing for Zeta reporters who do not want to desensitize their readers weekly are hauled over the border to Mexico with chronicles of gratuitous vio- lence. The newspaper seeks alter- in trucks that are branded with Zeta’s motto, natively to bring readers closer to Libre como el viento (Free like the wind). the families and neighborhoods of the victims. But when these jour- fornia, in 1980. Viewers can ap- that in some ways has become like nalists are also threatened by orga- preciate through the testimony an extended family that maintains nized crime, they have to dig deep of Blancornela’s son René Blanco, the legacy of the Blancornelas- to recover the human connection the current co-director of Zeta, Miranda partnership. Every Fri- that compels them to write. how the weekly grew from a small day at 4 a.m., bundles of the thick At the end of the film, one of network of family and friends on weekly are hauled over the bor- Zeta’s journalists, Sergio Haro both sides of the U.S.-Mexican der to Mexico in trucks that are Cordero, who has received death border. “The only link between branded with Zeta’s motto, Libre threats for his drug war reporting, the newspaper and my father was como el viento (Free like the wind) personifies the moral dilemma that my mother,” recalls Blanco in the and distributed by hundreds of many investigative journalists in film.