Blog del Narco
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| Type | Blog, newspaper, forum |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Two adolescents |
| Founded | 2 March 2010 |
| Language | Spanish |
| Website | www.blogdelnarco.com |
Blog del Narco (The Blog about the Drug Trafficking Industry) is an unpaid blog that attempts to document the violent incidents and characters involved in the Mexican Drug War that never make it to government reports or the mainstream media. MSNBC described Blog del Narco as "Mexico's go-to Web site on information on the country's drug war." Additionally, The Houston Chronicle said that Blog del Narco is "a gritty, front-row seat to Mexico's drug war."
The author spends four hours per day working on the website. To deal with the increased workload, he asked a friend to help him. In Mexico, many traditional journalistic outlets have been threatened and harassed due to stories about the drug trafficking industry they dared publish, so anonymous blogs like Blog del Narco have taken the role of reporting on events related to the drug war. The author, an anonymous computer security student in his 20s from northern Mexico, uses computer security techniques to obscure his identity. His anonymity has been maintained. When he conducted an interview with the Associated Press, he used a disguised telephone number. Nate Freeman of The Observer said "his facelessness allowed him get away with stories that would endanger known journalists[...]"
The Guardian and Los Angeles Times noted that Blog del Narco is a response to Mexico's "narco-censorship," a term used when reporters and editors of the Mexican Drug War, out of fear or caution, are forced to either write what the drug lords demand, or remain silent by not writing anything at all. If they do not comply with what the drug cartels demand, the journalists may be kidnapped, intimidated, or even killed.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 51 journalist have been killed in Mexico between the years 2000 and 2011. The National Human Rights Commission, however, reported that 74 journalists had been killed during that time. With the growing violence of the Mexican Drug War, media watchdogs have considered Mexico to be one of the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist.
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Wikipedia