Following Mexican newspaper El Diario’s front-page appeal this week, Ana Arana explains why journalists in Mexico remain split over whether to negotiate with drug cartels

“What do you want from us?”, El Diario de Juarez asked the two drug cartels fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez, one of the most important cities on the US-Mexico border. The front page editorial was a bold public display of the type of questions provincial journalists ask themselves every day when they are attacked by drug cartels. El Diario is the second largest newspaper in this border town, which was an industrial megacity, until it was brought to a halt by the drug war three years ago.  The daily newspaper’s editorial came after two of its intern photographers were shot by gunmen, the attack left one dead and the other wounded. The attack was confusing as the two young journalists had recently started their positions. It was the second murder of a journalist working for El Diario in the last two years.

The editorial sparked a diatribe from the Mexican government. Government spokesman Alejandro Poire attacked the newspaper for promoting illegal accords with organised crime.

To make matters worse for the El Diario, it was fooled on Monday by an impostor pretending to be Cesar Nava, the head of the ruling Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN), who said he supported negotiating an end to violence with organised crime.

In Mexico, as in most of Latin America, most of the attacks against journalists occur in provincial cities, where they often go unpunished. Regional media organisations are often small, because they are not as powerful as the national media they are attacked with impunity. There is often an underlying mistrust between these two types of media — the provincial news outlets pay lower salaries and their journalists get less training. In some cases journalists hold multiple jobs, which can pose conflicts of interest.

Until recently, the divide between the Mexican provincial press and the press in the Distrito Federal, as Mexico’s capital city is called, was huge. Attacks against journalists in Mexico have been common for more than 20 years ago, but they often occurred on border cities. Although the divide has narrowed recently — especially since the kidnapping of four journalists including a national Televisa cameraman last July — there is still a significant gap.

In recent interviews I have held with provincial editors, they say they still fee “abandoned” by their colleagues in Mexico City. “Some of our colleagues in [the city] feel we are giving in too quickly,” said one editor in Veracruz, “but the truth is they do not know the dangers we face.” Carlos Marin, of the national daily Milenio, scalded El Diario in a column yesterday, calling for the newspaper to close its doors, rather than capitulate before organised crime. Some Mexico City based editors are more willing to understand the plight of the provincial media. Denise Maerker, a columnist and Televisa presenter, said that El Diario de Juarez’s question to drug cartels last week was simply a public display of what is happening across Mexico. In her column in yesterday’s El Universal, she said that these pacts have been going on silently in the country. “Let’s not leave them alone”, she implored.

The issue underlying the entire debate over El Diario’s decision is the reality that more people in Mexico are questioning the drug war and are debating whether Mexico should negotiate with the drug cartels.

Ana Arana is Director of the Fundación Mexicana de Periodismo de Investigación