The journalism of J. Jesus Blancornelas hearkens to phrases etched in stone above the halls where American journalists earn degrees:
The truth shall set you free.
Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
In Blancornelas' work day, the pen must be mightier than the machine gun.
Which is why Blancornelas says he is living on the Spanish-language equivalent of borrowed time. He talked about his life one recent November night in a marble-laden Tijuana hotel.
Blancornelas, editor of the Tijuana-based Zeta newspaper, was the guest of honor speaking to a group of fellows in the University of Southern California's Justice and Journalism program, reporters studying the U.S./Mexican border.
He arrived flanked by armed guards. The security detail accompanies him around the clock, provided by the Mexican military.
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"Five years, eleven months, four days, and 12 hours,'' he repeated several times.
That was the time that has passed since a gunman nearly assassinated the 67-year-old Blancornelas.
Blancornelas didn't "dodge the bullets,'' he took the bullets.
Four, to be exact.
The day reads like a Hollywood script:
November 27, 1997 — Blancornelas is being driven to the offices of Zeta, the Tijuana-based weekly newspaper he helped found.
His driver and friend, Luis Valero Elizaldi, notes a car full of men who look like drug dealers. Not a surprising sight in Tijuana, or to Blancornelas -- who has made it his journalistic calling to write explicitly about who is selling drugs, accepting bribes, and which government official is turning his head.
The other car blocks the road. The window rolls down. A gun points out.
Nearly 200 bullets later, Valero is dead and Blancornelas is dying.
One of the gunman's accomplices is also dead. A bullet ricocheted into his eye.
Blancornelas takes a week to regain consciousness, after two surgeries and receiving his last rites from the Catholic Church. One bullet is found lodged near his spine.
Blancornelas did not provide all the details that night in Tijuana. Many are gleaned from Internet recountings.
He simply referred, repeatedly, to the day as "the accident.''
The reason for the assassination attempt?
Blancornelas had printed a letter from the mother of two young drug dealers who had been executed by their cartel.
"Repression hasn't altogether left, and freedom hasn't really arrived," Blancornelas said of life in Mexico."It was a heartfelt letter,'' he said. "I put it on the front page.''
There are more reasons, of course. His newspaper has long broken the journalism conventions of Mexico, where far too many reporters take bribes, or simply print government press releases verbatim.
Blancornelas has repeatedly used his pen to accuse government officials and cartels of their crimes.
Blancornelas' fellow journalist, Hector "El Gato'' Felix Miranda, who also founded Zeta, was murdered in a Tijuana alley in 1988.
Now, the mantra of Blancornelas is: "God did not let you die. You must continue where you are. And you must fight.''
The obvious question is: Why does Blancornelas keep writing?
"If I had retired I would have put my colleagues at risk,'' he said.
Meaning the drug traffickers would have won. They would know it is possible to scare journalists away from printing the truth.
From an American journalist's perspective, the Mexican press can be a surreal world.
Zeta has had issues confiscated and been shut down by government officials claiming union abuses.
And it hasn't been that many years since the Mexican government controlled presses by holding a monopoly on the sale of newsprint.
"Repression hasn't altogether left, and freedom hasn't really arrived," Blancornelas said of Mexico.
But perhaps the most surprising theme of the evening was that Blancornelas framed his talk as a plea to American journalists.
American journalists need to look South for heart, for soul. To fully appreciate the safety under which most of us do our work."We have a need to understand ethics better, freedom better,'' he said. "The only way is to look North. I believe the more Mexican journalism looks north, the better we may be.''
Yes, that is true in some ways. But American journalists need to look South for heart, for soul. To fully appreciate the safety under which most of us do our work.
America, the country with the greatest press freedoms, often makes the least use of them.
Details that consume American journalists would never occur to Blancornelas.
I seriously doubt whether Blancornelas gauges what he writes on a focus group. He writes what people need to know.
American reporters fret and fume about: copy hacked of flavor and tone; ever-shrinking news holes; readers who complain our words are too liberal or too conservative; fear-based decision-making by middle managers stifled by upper management.
Real issues all, but inconsequential in the broader view of the journalism of Blancornelas.
Even the very real clamping-down on American press freedoms since the terrorist attacks of September 11 is a trifle by comparison.
Having a FOI request denied, or being told "no access'' by an immigration official? Try losing the ability to leave your home without an armed guard at your side, a bulletproof vest across your chest.
