Killing the Story: Journalists Risking Their Lives to Uncover the Truth in Mexico

Journalist and documentary filmmaker Grecko (La ola verde) delivers a harrowing, meticulously detailed report on Mexico’s “militarized war on drugs” and its violent impact on the country’s citizens and reporters. Citing evidence that as many as 141 journalists were assassinated between 2000 and 2018, Grecko profiles such victims as Rubén Espinosa, who was murdered in July 2015 for reporting on political corruption and press intimidation in the state of Veracruz, where former governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa and his henchmen have been implicated in multiple crimes, and Miroslava Breach, whose investigations into environmental destruction, violence against indigenous communities, and femicide in Ciudad Juárez led to her execution-style murder in March 2017. Though readers without a background or deep interest in Mexican politics and press freedoms will find the level of granularity overwhelming, Grecko and translator Stockwell recount these troubling case studies in lucid and vivid prose. The result is a deeply disturbing account of the lengths powerful interests will go to keep their secrets hidden. (Aug.)