Margarito Martinez: Mexican journalist shot dead outside home

[Judi Lynn]

Margarito Martinez, 49, who covered police and crime, was fatally shot near his home in Tijuana, near the US border.



Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martinez was found fatally shot near his home in Tijuana, Mexico. [File: Guillermo Arias/AFP]

Published On 18 Jan 2022
18 Jan 2022

A photojournalist has been found fatally shot in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana, the latest killing of a media worker in the country. Margarito Martinez, 49, was found near his home with a fatal gunshot wound to his head on Monday, the security secretariat in the northwestern state of Baja California said in a statement.

Media rights group Yo So Soy Periodista (I Am a Journalist) said Martinez, who reported on police and crime, had previously received threats from people connected to organised crime.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Martinez, beyond working for local outlets, worked as a fixer for international outlets including the BBC and the Los Angeles Times.

. . .

More than 100 reporters have been murdered in Mexico since 2000, with powerful drug cartels operating in the country often killing to discourage journalists from investigating, or generally reporting on, their dealings and their connections to officials.

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/18/photojournalist-killed-in-mexico-border-city

[Judi Lynn]

1. Photojournalist killed in Tijuana is second Mexican reporter killed so far in 2022

By Murphy Woodhouse

Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - 9:46pm
Updated: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - 9:47pm

The killing of Margarito Martinez Esquivel, a well-respected photojournalist who worked with a number of international outlets, is the second reporter killed so far in Mexico in 2022.

Earlier this month, Jose Luis Gamboa was stabbed to death in Veracruz.

For three years running, Mexico has been considered the most dangerous country for reporters in the world, according to a recent annual tally from the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Martinez had recently complained about threats made against him, and was seeking government protection, according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune, one of many outlets to have hired him to help with coverage.

https://fronterasdesk.org/content/1748660/photojournalist-killed-tijuana-second-mexican-reporter-killed-so-far-2022

[Judi Lynn]

2. Two journalists exposing Mexico's corruption and drug violence murdered within one week

Margarito Martínez Esquivel and José Luis Gamboa are the latest casualties in the world’s most dangerous country for reporters outside war zones

Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Tue 18 Jan 2022 10.32 EST

Mexico’s embattled press corps has suffered a shattering start to the new year with the murders of two journalists who had dared chronicle their country’s slide into drug- and corruption-fuelled violence.

Margarito Martínez Esquivel, a crime reporter and photographer who often collaborated with members of the foreign media, was shot dead outside his home in the northern city of Tijuana on Monday lunchtime.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything for him,” his distraught wife, Elena Martínez, told the San Diego Union-Tribune – one of numerous international outlets the journalist had worked with, including the BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

Martínez’s death came a week after another journalist, José Luis Gamboa, was fatally stabbed in the eastern state of Veracruz, another of Mexico’s most violent regions.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/18/journalists-exposing-mexico-corruption-drug-violence-murdered

[Judi Lynn]

3. Startling information from the Guardian article above:

Two days earlier Gamboa, the director of a news website called Inforegio, used Twitter to call for the appointment of an anti-drug tsar who might slow the decades-long escalation in bloodshed. Last year he lamented how parts of the government, instead of fighting drug trafficking, had been sucked into “a great criminal association” with the cartels. “The Mexican population still hasn’t grasped how serious this is,” Gamboa tweeted.

The two as yet unexplained killings – which follow the murder of nine journalists last year – sparked outrage and mourning in the Latin American country, which is considered the world’s most dangerous country for reporters outside war zones.

In some regions journalists have become so fearful of being abducted and killed that they take DIY dental impressions and leave them in the freezer at home before going out to report so relatives can identify their remains.