Holley writes: "The Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News has
said the story - published Saturday by Rolling Stone and submitted for
Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's approval before it was made public - is evidence
of the inherent conflict between journalism and entertainment."
Sean Penn and then-fugitive Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman are pictured on Oct.
2, in a photo taken for verification purposes. After a long dinner and
conversation, Chapo granted the actor's request for an interview that was
published in Rolling Stone magazine. (photo: Rolling Stone)
Why Sean Penn's El Chapo Meeting Was an 'Epic Insult' to Imperiled Mexican
Journalists
By Peter Holley, The Washington Post
11 January 16
s the Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News for almost two
decades, Alfredo Corchado has been on the front lines of the journalistic
struggle to document the brutal toll of drug violence across Mexico.
That struggle is among the worlds deadliest, with more than 60 Mexican
journalists killed or having disappeared over the past decade, according to
the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Mexico is one of the worlds most dangerous countries for journalists,
according to Reporters Without Borders. They are threatened and murdered by
organized crime or corrupt officials with impunity. The resulting climate of
fear leads to self-censorship and undermines freedom of information.
Stories about government corruption, Mexicos middle-class exodus and drug
violence have placed Corchado on the receiving end of numerous death threats
that have forced him to flee the country for months at a time. Like many of
his courageous Mexican contemporaries, he has attempted to forge ahead, even
as entire regions of the embattled nation Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Durango
have had their independent media silenced by the specter of violence.
In these places, Corchado notes, nobody prints anything without cartel
approval, including it would seem Sean Penn.
For Corchado and many of his colleagues, therein lies the problem with the
American actors controversial first-person account of meeting with the
notorious drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán. Corchado said the story
published Saturday by Rolling Stone and submitted for Guzmáns approval
before it was made public is evidence of the inherent conflict between
journalism and entertainment.
When youre not really challenging the person and have agreed to submit the
story for approval, it sounds more like a Hollywood entertainment,
Corchado, who was recently named the borderlands director of Arizona States
Walter Cronkites School of Journalism, told The Washington Post. Its not
on par with the sacrifice of many of my colleagues in Mexico and throughout
the world who have lost their lives fighting censorship.
Is he serving the public or is he aggrandizing himself? he added,
referring to Penn.
Its a question that has rippled across the journalism world, with the
Rolling Stone story drawing as much criticism as it has undoubtedly drawn
clicks.
As The Posts Dana Priest reported in December, newspaper readers in Mexico
are unaware of the life-and-death decisions editors make every day not to
anger different local cartel commanders.
Hildebrando Brando Deandar Ayala editor in chief of El Mañana, one of
the oldest and largest newspapers in the region with a print circulation of
30,000 told Priest that submitting to cartel censorship demands is a
self-preservation tactic.
You do it or you die, and nobody wants to die, he told The Post. Auto
censura self-censorship thats our shield.
He added: The readers hate us sometimes. But they dont know the real risks
we go through.
Priests report noted that four El Mañana journalists have been killed in
the past 10 years. Others survived assassination attempts, kidnappings, and
grenade and machine-gun attacks on their offices. Deandar has been shot,
kidnapped and had his home set on fire, he said.
The report added:
The three largest U.S. newspapers nearby the Brownsville Herald, the
Monitor in McAllen, Tex., and the Laredo Morning Times forbid their
reporters from crossing to report because its too dangerous, according to
the editors at the newspapers.
To many observers, Penns sometimes playful prose revealed a troubling
admiration for the man who is one of the main players in the countrys
bloody drug wars, which have claimed at least 100,000 lives over the last
decade, according to Quartz.
As you dive deeper into the meandering mess, it becomes clear that Penn
holds some sort of Hollywood-inspired reverence for El Chapo, Gawkers
Melissa Cronin writes in a post that catalogues the storys worst lines.
For others, Penns controversial account was reminiscent of the magazines
9,000-word debacle about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that
never occurred.
Jeet Heer, a senior editor for the New Republic, alluded to the fabricated
account on Twitter, writing: Rolling Stone sets standard journalist ethics
aside to get story that will attract enormous attention. What could go
wrong?
Others, such as Vice correspondent Danny Gold, called out journalists for
their hypocrisy. He argued that Penn did what any other journalist desperate
for the most sought-after scoop in the world would have done, according to
CNN.
Never a fan of Penns journalism, Gold wrote, but me and every other
journo would have compromised a whole lot more to get an interview with El
Chapo. Anyone else who says otherwise is lying.
MSNBCs Chris Hayes noted that ethical considerations have a way of becoming
immaterial in the face of enormous traffic.
Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists,
told The Post that he would let the media debate the ethics of Penns
actions. Before making a judgement, however, he suggested that people
consider the degree of self-censorship occurring in communities across
Mexico. Journalists in Mexico, he noted, receive no protection from their
government, which is often complicit in the risks they take to write about.
Considering that meetings with high-level cartel members and the media are
highly unusual, but not unheard of, he said the actors story should be
judged by what it reveals.
Should journalists ever interview criminals? Simon asked. I would say
sure.
But if you as a journalist interview someone like El Chapo, you better
deliver some valuable and important information, in my view, he added. In
this particular instance, he had an assignment for a highly visible and
important publication, and whether he delivered a story worthy of the risks
he took, thats something the editors have to decide and the media itself
should be debating.
The leader of the Sinaloa cartel, who had been locked up in what has been
described as the countrys most impenetrable prison, was recaptured in
western Mexico after a shootout that left five dead.
Noting how rare such an interview is, Corchado said he hopes some insight
will come from giving the public any glimpse of the criminal mastermind. And
yet, hes still troubled by how the information was acquired.
Do I or other journalists wish we would have gotten the interview? he
added. Of course, but I doubt that we would have been provided with the
same protections of a Hollywood star. The interview also came with big
strings attached, like final approval by Chapo of the article. That amounts
to similar censorship that my Mexican colleagues face today. Except if they
dont comply, they may not live to tell about it.
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Sean Penn and then-fugitive Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman are pictured on Oct.
2, in a photo taken for verification purposes. After a long dinner and
conversation, Chapo granted the actor's request for an interview that was
published in Rolling Stone magazine. (photo: Rolling Stone)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/10/why
-many-consider-sean-penns-el-chapo-meeting-an-epic-insult-to-mexican-journal
ists/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_style-journalists740p%3Ahomepage%2Fstoryht
tps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/10/why-m
any-consider-sean-penns-el-chapo-meeting-an-epic-insult-to-mexican-journalis
ts/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_style-journalists740p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Why Sean Penn's El Chapo Meeting Was an 'Epic Insult' to Imperiled Mexican
Journalists
By Peter Holley, The Washington Post
11 January 16
s the Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News for almost two
decades, Alfredo Corchado has been on the front lines of the journalistic
struggle to document the brutal toll of drug violence across Mexico.
That struggle is among the worlds deadliest, with more than 60 Mexican
journalists killed or having disappeared over the past decade, according to
the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Mexico is one of the worlds most dangerous countries for journalists,
according to Reporters Without Borders. They are threatened and murdered by
organized crime or corrupt officials with impunity. The resulting climate of
fear leads to self-censorship and undermines freedom of information.
Stories about government corruption, Mexicos middle-class exodus and drug
violence have placed Corchado on the receiving end of numerous death threats
that have forced him to flee the country for months at a time. Like many of
his courageous Mexican contemporaries, he has attempted to forge ahead, even
as entire regions of the embattled nation Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Durango
have had their independent media silenced by the specter of violence.
In these places, Corchado notes, nobody prints anything without cartel
approval, including it would seem Sean Penn.
For Corchado and many of his colleagues, therein lies the problem with the
American actors controversial first-person account of meeting with the
notorious drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán. Corchado said the story
published Saturday by Rolling Stone and submitted for Guzmáns approval
before it was made public is evidence of the inherent conflict between
journalism and entertainment.
When youre not really challenging the person and have agreed to submit the
story for approval, it sounds more like a Hollywood entertainment,
Corchado, who was recently named the borderlands director of Arizona States
Walter Cronkites School of Journalism, told The Washington Post. Its not
on par with the sacrifice of many of my colleagues in Mexico and throughout
the world who have lost their lives fighting censorship.
Is he serving the public or is he aggrandizing himself? he added,
referring to Penn.
Its a question that has rippled across the journalism world, with the
Rolling Stone story drawing as much criticism as it has undoubtedly drawn
clicks.
As The Posts Dana Priest reported in December, newspaper readers in Mexico
are unaware of the life-and-death decisions editors make every day not to
anger different local cartel commanders.
Hildebrando Brando Deandar Ayala editor in chief of El Mañana, one of
the oldest and largest newspapers in the region with a print circulation of
30,000 told Priest that submitting to cartel censorship demands is a
self-preservation tactic.
You do it or you die, and nobody wants to die, he told The Post. Auto
censura self-censorship thats our shield.
He added: The readers hate us sometimes. But they dont know the real risks
we go through.
Priests report noted that four El Mañana journalists have been killed in
the past 10 years. Others survived assassination attempts, kidnappings, and
grenade and machine-gun attacks on their offices. Deandar has been shot,
kidnapped and had his home set on fire, he said.
The report added:
The three largest U.S. newspapers nearby the Brownsville Herald, the
Monitor in McAllen, Tex., and the Laredo Morning Times forbid their
reporters from crossing to report because its too dangerous, according to
the editors at the newspapers.
To many observers, Penns sometimes playful prose revealed a troubling
admiration for the man who is one of the main players in the countrys
bloody drug wars, which have claimed at least 100,000 lives over the last
decade, according to Quartz.
As you dive deeper into the meandering mess, it becomes clear that Penn
holds some sort of Hollywood-inspired reverence for El Chapo, Gawkers
Melissa Cronin writes in a post that catalogues the storys worst lines.
For others, Penns controversial account was reminiscent of the magazines
9,000-word debacle about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that
never occurred.
Jeet Heer, a senior editor for the New Republic, alluded to the fabricated
account on Twitter, writing: Rolling Stone sets standard journalist ethics
aside to get story that will attract enormous attention. What could go
wrong?
Others, such as Vice correspondent Danny Gold, called out journalists for
their hypocrisy. He argued that Penn did what any other journalist desperate
for the most sought-after scoop in the world would have done, according to
CNN.
Never a fan of Penns journalism, Gold wrote, but me and every other
journo would have compromised a whole lot more to get an interview with El
Chapo. Anyone else who says otherwise is lying.
MSNBCs Chris Hayes noted that ethical considerations have a way of becoming
immaterial in the face of enormous traffic.
Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists,
told The Post that he would let the media debate the ethics of Penns
actions. Before making a judgement, however, he suggested that people
consider the degree of self-censorship occurring in communities across
Mexico. Journalists in Mexico, he noted, receive no protection from their
government, which is often complicit in the risks they take to write about.
Considering that meetings with high-level cartel members and the media are
highly unusual, but not unheard of, he said the actors story should be
judged by what it reveals.
Should journalists ever interview criminals? Simon asked. I would say
sure.
But if you as a journalist interview someone like El Chapo, you better
deliver some valuable and important information, in my view, he added. In
this particular instance, he had an assignment for a highly visible and
important publication, and whether he delivered a story worthy of the risks
he took, thats something the editors have to decide and the media itself
should be debating.
The leader of the Sinaloa cartel, who had been locked up in what has been
described as the countrys most impenetrable prison, was recaptured in
western Mexico after a shootout that left five dead.
Noting how rare such an interview is, Corchado said he hopes some insight
will come from giving the public any glimpse of the criminal mastermind. And
yet, hes still troubled by how the information was acquired.
Do I or other journalists wish we would have gotten the interview? he
added. Of course, but I doubt that we would have been provided with the
same protections of a Hollywood star. The interview also came with big
strings attached, like final approval by Chapo of the article. That amounts
to similar censorship that my Mexican colleagues face today. Except if they
dont comply, they may not live to tell about it.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize