BajaNomad
Not logged in [Login - Register]

Go To Bottom
Printable Version  
Author: Subject: Mexican editor to get prize for courage in drug coverage
elgatoloco
Ultra Nomad
*****




Posts: 4332
Registered: 11-19-2002
Location: Yes
Member Is Offline


thumbup.gif posted on 3-16-2005 at 11:07 AM
Mexican editor to get prize for courage in drug coverage


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050316-9...

Mexican editor to get prize for courage in drug coverage

By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 16, 2005

TIJUANA ? Zeta newspaper editor Jes?s Blancornelas will receive the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism for his coverage of drug trafficking issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This carries a lot of weight because it is in memory of a fellow reporter who was killed," Blancornelas said yesterday. "There are others who deserve this prize more than me, but for some reason they chose me and I receive it in the name of others who cover this sort of thing."

The Los Angeles Press Club started the award in the name of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was killed after being kidnapped in 2002 by Islamic militants in Pakistan.

Until now, all of the Pearl Award recipients have covered issues in the volatile Middle East. This is the first time a Mexican journalist has been chosen, and the first time the focus has been on drug trafficking.

Blancornelas, 69, writes regularly about criminal and political issues along the Baja California border. Tapping into a large network of sources, Blancornelas and his weekly paper provide detailed analysis of the upheavals and power shifts in the drug world.

He was the target of an attempted killing in 1997 that was linked to the region's Arellano F?lix drug cartel. His bodyguard died in the attack.

Blancornelas remains under heavy guard at all times, but the paper has suffered other losses. In 1988, his co-editor Hector F?lix Miranda was gunned down. The Arellanos also are believed to be behind the killing last year of one of his assistant editors, Francisco Ort?z Franco.

Diana Ljungaeus, executive director of the Los Angeles Press Club, said the 14-member board decides on a nominee after discussing suggested candidates, and then checks with the Pearl family. She said the board voted unanimously to honor Blancornelas.

"It's a great honor for us to be presenting this to him," she said. "It's a different kind of courage to actually keep on doing what he's doing under the circumstances he is operating in. It takes true courage to keep on writing after attempts on his life."

Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, said the Pearl family was "very moved" by Blancornelas' background and persistence.

"He was unyielding, and we saw the kind of courage that underlies his professional life," Pearl said.

The award will be presented to Blancornelas in June when the Press Club's Journalism Awards are made. It is the latest of more than a dozen awards Blancornelas has received from journalism groups and other associations throughout the world.





MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys

View user's profile

  Go To Top

 






All Content Copyright 1997- Q87 International; All Rights Reserved.
Powered by XMB; XMB Forum Software © 2001-2014 The XMB Group






"If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen. The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back if we live, and we don't know why." - Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez

 

"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt

 

"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them or to them." - Malcolm Forbes

 

"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you." - Jim Rohn

 

"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." - Cunningham's Law







Thank you to Baja Bound Mexico Insurance Services for your long-term support of the BajaNomad.com Forums site.







Emergency Baja Contacts Include:

Desert Hawks; El Rosario-based ambulance transport; Emergency #: (616) 103-0262