Bernardo Ruiz’s ‘Reportero’ Film Highlights Dangers For Journalists In Mexico

Hector Felix Miranda was a popular Tijuana columnist – respected by readers, but reviled by the people he wrote about, most often Tijuana’s political elite.
When he was gunned down in the late 1980s, it was a wake-up call for the staff of Zeta – the scrappy weekly newspaper Felix founded to challenge Baja California’s culture of political corruption. The slaying showed that freedom of expression in Mexico was not free.
That was 24 years ago, when the biggest threat to a Mexican free press was the country’s all-controlling single party government: the PRI. Today, the dangers from drug cartels are more widespread, more brazen and with big guns.