CBS News 8/23/2017
XALAPA, Mexico — A newspaper reporter in the Mexican Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was enrolled in a government protection program for journalists was killed Tuesday along with two other men, one of his editors and a journalist advocacy group said.
Candido Rios Vazquez, a crime reporter for the newspaper Diario de Acayucan, was at least the ninth journalist slain this year in Mexico. More than 100 journalists have been killed in the past 25 years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“Every journalist in Mexico is a target now,” Luis Chaparro, a freelance journalist in Ciudad Juarez, told “CBSN: On Assignment.”
The State Commission for Attention and Protection of Journalists and Cecilio Perez Cortes, deputy editor at Rios’ newspaper, said the reporter was in the federal government’s mechanism for protection of journalists and human rights workers.
Perez said Rios had been threatened repeatedly since 2012 by a former mayor of Hueyapan de Ocampo and had a panic button on his cellphone and a security camera at his home. Rios had just finished his work for the day around 3 p.m. and was on his way home, Perez said.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a reporter in the violent Mexican state of Veracruz on Tuesday, authorities said, bringing to at least nine the number of journalists killed in the country this year.
The attorney general’s office of the Mexican gulf state of Veracruz said on Monday it has opened an investigation into the shooting death of a Honduran photojournalist, who had apparently fled his home country fearing for his life.
One month ago today, world-renowned Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas was ambushed by unidentified assailants while leaving his office in his hometown of Culiacán, Sinaloa. According to press reports, he was pulled from his car, shot a dozen times in the middle of the day on a crowded street, and left lifeless in the middle of the road. His signature Panama hat lay bloodied beside him.