Mexico Turns to Social Media and Citizen Journalism During Drug War Media Blackout

A recent article from Houston Based Blog attempts to understand the phenomena known as Blog Del Narco.

The war on drugs in Mexico has taken the lives of more thank 50,000 citizens in that country in the last six years. Journalists account for 44 of those deaths. The state of Journalism in Mexico is one of fear and complete censorship. The drug cartels have been systematically shutting down news rooms and freelance journalists by threatening to kill them and their entire families. Reporters, editors and photojournalist's bodies along with their family members, have been found along streets and sometimes hanging over bridges displaying large banners with written messages to the public known as narcomantas. At times grenades have been thrown directly in to the buildings of news rooms.

Newspapers are still being printed and news is made everyday in Mexico, the difference is, only the murder is reported. No names are used, no suspects are reported and sometimes bylines in articles are left blank. Newspaper editors have been known to approach the cartels and ask, "what would you like us to report on?" This is media coverage about the drug war in Mexico today.

The last six years however, social media has played a central role in the reporting of the drug related violence. Enter, Blog Del Narco a blog that has been up and running since 2007. What makes this blog special is the ability to stay anonymous. All that is known about the blog is that it was created by a computer science student in Northern Mexico. It is ran by a handful of editors, and moderators and it is protected by numerous firewalls that protect it's location.

This cloak of invisibility allows users to share information freely with out fear of retaliation. One can open an account and start blogging today under anonymous. Now I can shoot a video at a downtown mall where a shooting may take place and I can upload to YouTube and then post in on Blog Del Narco where I can comment on what I saw and any details of the vehicles, weapons, or identities of the individuals involved. I can warn people, do stay away from downtown  or stay of the highways.

See Video of Shootout 

This has not only proven valuable to citizens in the violent towns but it also has become a free for all information bulletin. It is believed that the site is getting up too 1million hits per months. Visitors include, private citizens, Mexican police, Mexican Federal agents, American DEA, CIA and of course the gang members themselves. cartel members will post a video of a an execution and comment on why they did it and who is next. The graphic nature of the site is what gives it part of it's credibility. The videos are not censored, the violence is raw.  

One incident occurred in 2011 where a couple of teenage boys took out cell phones while sitting on their front porch of their home. They were witnessing a shooting directly across the street. They decided to hide behind a car parked in their driveway and start filming the shootout. The five minute video showed SUVs peeling out and machine-gun fire crackling down the residential streets. Members running in and out of vehicles and eventually bodies dropping to the floor and left dead. The two boys who were cousins decided to upload the video rot YouTube as soon as they got in the house. I mean that was some great video surely it would go viral that night. What occurred next changed the way citizen journalism operated over night. The video was posted on Blog Del Narco and later viewed by the gang members involved in the shootout earlier that morning. A quick scan of the location and point of view of the camera lens, allowed the gang members to identify where the video had been shot from. The next morning, the two boys got a knock on the door.

The YouTube comments were still coming in when an R.I.P. comment read the names of the two amateur videographers.

I do not know what is going to happen in Mexico but I hope the government acts quickly to protect journalists. I also hope social media will play a larger role in the dissimanation of cartel activity in Mexico.

“Leading” Photos Lead Me in Circles

In journalism, a good image can make a good story great. The right image can captivate a reader. It can hold them hostage for those few moments necessary to inspire interest in a well-developed article. But I can’t help but notice that good news photos are becoming harder and harder to come by. 

Roaming around the internet I often feel bombarded with eye catching images proceeded by pithy headlines. Intrigued, I click the link to the “full story” only to find a story that was not exactly what I anticipated. Too often the images meeting our eyes on the home page of our favorite news outlets are common and unenticing. Even more frequently these images have little or nothing to do with the actual content of the article itself.

In recent years there has been a tendency for news organizations to use “stock” photography to bolster the appeal of their article. In fact many of the headlining images we see are directly from creative commons and image collections such as iStockphoto, Getty Images, and Corbis Images. There are many web sites dedicated to providing easy access to a wealth of images to ease such rapid production of news the consumers expect such as Photo Archive News.

They are easy to spot with their nondescript depictions of every day material. Open up any browser homepage, MSN, Yahoo!, even Google News, and these types of images are proudly displayed, luring visitors to stop and look for a moment at the headlines below.

Although many of these images are well crafted visually they usually bear very limited relevance to the specifics details being discussed. They are common and ordinary, but just interesting enough. Nothing specific. Some images are so generic I feel a little duped.

Many of the images are meant to be representative of ideals. For example, the LA Times used a stock photograph of a dog looking out a window, while reporting their recent story “Dogs accidentally poison veterinarians”. Presumably, this image is being used symbolically to provide a reference of a dog. Obviously we all need a reference of a random dog to understand this story better, right?

The LA Times is not alone in infecting journalism with these fake news photos. Not even the New York Times has been able to fight the disease.

But why?

The benefit for news producers is clear, decently intriguing photos without having to hire a photographer to cover a story. Even better it allows small news organizations who cannot afford to have staff photographers, or to hire freelancers, to compete with the major news distributors, at least online. But what about their journalistic responsibility to consumers?

I don’t need a generic image posted with a story to understand what the story is about. I want to see specifics! When I look up the same story on seven different news sites I don’t want to see the same darn image, or one that looks just like it, everywhere. I want that dog. Those vets. I want multiple different angles of Lady Gaga’s latest fashion feature, not the same two photos recycled and re-posted on every single site. I want real combat images not stock shots from three years ago with soldiers that aren’t even in the service anymore.

I want variety.

We deserve variety because that’s what journalism is about, finding an angle. If the stories must have an angle, the images that go with them must too. If the story has to be up to date, the photos do too. Otherwise there’s no point.

My photo...not yours!!

As the class continues to go on and the discussions on digital journalism heats up, I've been thinking about copyrights. With Sam Gregory providing a space for people to post or display what they see, I wonder how he handles copyright issues. The images of non public figures and random pictures that journalist may fiind on the internet, may requir permisson right?  I found this article that slams the idea of people freely taking images and using them without permission. James (Jim) Colburn is a digital photograher and journalist. Check out the article  http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/colburn.htm