Global Journalist Show
Covering Organized CrimePosted Jun 23 2011
On this week’s Global Journalist Radio, we tackle one of the most daunting and dangerous subjects for media professionals today: organized crime. Whether drug cartels, mafias, paramilitary groups or other underground criminal networks, organized crime plays an important part in today’s economic and political landscape and prevents many daunting and unique challenges for reporters.
This week’s guests include:
• Benoît Hervieu, head of the Reporters without Borders Americas desk and author of a new report, “Organized Crime: Muscling in on the Media.”
• Daniel Connolly, investigative reporter for The Commercial Appeal newspaper and author of that paper’s series, “Blood Trade,” exploring the Mexico-U.S. drug trade and its international reach.
• Drew Sullivan, editor for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a newer project that culls the work and resources of journalists the world over to produce award-winning reporting on international and Eastern European crime networks.
Some of the topics they cover in the broadcast, and in their individual work, include:
• The risks of reporting on organized crime. According to Reporters without Borders, a total of 141 journalists were killed during the decade of the 2000s for daring to denounce the influence of criminal gangs and their parallel economy.
• The support that reporters do and do not get in order to effectively carry out this important work.
• The growing movement among media professionals, often supported by international NGOs, to promote meaningful investigative reporting on these networks and the violence and corruption they feed — beyond the day-to-day bloodshed and occasional raids.
You can listen to this program tonight Thursday, June 23, 2011 on KBIA live at 6:30 p.m., or you can download the podcast.