Free Republic

MEXICO CITY — The El Manana newspaper in the northern Mexico border city of Nuevo Laredo says it will stop covering violent criminal disputes after suffering a second grenade attack against its offices in two months. Other northern Mexican newspapers have quietly adopted similar policies of not covering drug cartel violence to protect their staffs against threats and violent attacks including kidnappings and murders carried out by gangs that either don't want their activities to appear in print, or are angered by coverage of their rivals. But El Manana's announcement Tuesday was unusual because it was public. The paper did...

NUEVO LAREDO - Organized crime is beyond the ability of state and local authorities to control because it's a national and international problem, the governor of Tamaulipas said Saturday at the doors of El Mañana. "There's a lack of force and decisive action, although we have seen the good intentions of the president of the Republic, Vicente Fox, in fighting those who violate the law," said Gov. Eugenio Hernández Flores after meeting with the paper's owners. "We have asked the federal government for more help to avoid any further increase in crime." Two reporters were injured, one critically, when masked...

NUEVO LAREDO - Ramón Darío Cantú Deándar, the owner and general manager of Nuevo Laredo's El Mañana newspaper, promised to all but stop covering the ongoing bloody turf war between rival drug cartels to protect the paper's employees. "We have asked our personnel to remain calm," Cantú Deándar said in a news conference Tuesday, the day after masked men attacked the newsroom with machine guns. "We will be careful with what we publish regarding the drug trade." The paper already had been downplaying the increasing violence in the city as part of its efforts to maintain the community's image, but...