Jesus Blancornelas Essay, Research Paper

Henry

Jesus Blancornelas

Jesus Blancornelas was born in San Luis Potosi on November 14, 1936. He joined the newspaper business in 1956. He started his career in the sports section of El Sol de San Luis. Through his hard work he successfully became a reporter, city editor and news editor of the Tijuana-based daily newspaper El Mexicano. Later on in his career, he joined the Mexicali daily newspaper La Voz de la Frontera, as sub-editor and was promoted to editor-in-chief.

Blancornelas was accused of many things like fraud from people that did not liked him, He immigrated to the United States, where he stayed for two years in California to get away from all of this. He was able to continue writing in Zeta, a newspaper from San Diego published in Mexico. During that time, he lost a friend, named Hector El Gato Felix Miranda. Miranda was killed when gunmen of the Mexican Mafia armed with machine-guns, opened fire at the newspaper office where Miranda fell dead. Had Blancornelas been there, he would have been killed as well.

In late 1997, Blancornelas bodyguard was killed, when gunmen armed with AK-47s and shotguns surrounded the Ford Explorer he was driving. Blancornelas was also shot four times and a bullet fragment was lodged near his spine. He underwent surgery for two days and recovered. Blancornelas thinks he was shot, because the week before, he had published an article stating that C.H., a member of the Tijuana drug cartel, was the gunman who killed two Mexican soldiers on November 14, 1997. Security sources say initial suspicion in Blancornelas attack, leads to the drug cartel.

Blancornelas was very scared for his life, because of the growing number of violent attacks against journalists in Mexico. Blancornelas and other journalists from the press, formed a freedom organization called, the Sociedad Periodistas (Society of Journalists.). The journalist demanded security for newspaper columnist and International PEN President Homero Aridjis, who received threats after he spoke of the lack of freedom of the press in Mexico.

His newspaper Zeta dared to provide hard-hitting stories on Mexico s drugs trafficking. He once wrote, In the recent years, Tijuana has been one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Mexico s ongoing drug war which threatens the country s economic and political stability as well as its social fabric. With a population of 1 million, Tijuana has about 1,000 murders a year, the same as New York, but the population is more than 7 million. The city has dozen of drug assassination every year.

Jesus Blancornelas who reported for over two decades, who continuously went through violent attacks that almost cost his life, inspired new reporters to stop the old habits of bribe taking. He provided the Mexican public with more balanced coverage of the news. Blancornelas was a member of the UNESCO and received the Guiilermo Cano World Press Freedom Award for all of his efforts.

Still in the newspaper business, Jesus Blancornelas is currently facing problems from the Mexican Mafia and remains under surveillance 24-7 by the Mexican Government. He continues to gives the Mexican readers good and exciting stories about the drug cartel.

Jesus Blancornelas has helped us in many ways by investigating drug smuggling, helping the United States in it s war against drugs from Mexico, and making our environment drug free for all of us.