Thoughts on student newspaper censorship

Endless Fuel

by Astrid Viveros*

On January 2006, La Catarina, the college newspaper I worked for, was forced to stop publishing accurate, true stories that were labeled as overly critical. I naively thought Mexican media would have an instant uproar for such atrocity. We received support from a couple of local newspapers but were criticized by many others. We were portrayed in stories and articles as young troublemakers looking for attention, students trying to spoil the good name of one of Mexico’s finest universities.

However, we brushed the criticisms away and reminded ourselves we were fighting for a right cause: freedom of speech. After a couple of weeks of reaching out to national and international media, the administration caved in and we were able to publish our newspaper again. After this incident, I can proudly say that La Catarina saw some of the best work in it’s history.

I graduated that semester thinking the worst was over. Unfortunately, the last issue I worked on was also the last real newspaper issue La Catarina would see. In autumn 2006, the newspaper where I had found my passion for journalism was taken over by students who were happy to work on the stolen project the university handed to them. The censorship of La Catarina was old news, there wasn’t as much reactions as there had been in January, the university had its way.

To this day, the newspaper remains printing it’s weekly issue but with very different editorial guidelines. This incident showed me that justice doesn’t always prevail. Not a week goes by where I wonder if I could have done more to prevent the censorship and eventual dissolution of La Catarina. I have spent many hours going through everything that happened and looking for the solution that was needed a year and a half ago. In the end, I have to remind myself that it was neither my friends’ fault nor mine that we lost the newspaper.

As history has proven, not often tyrants with political and economic power fail to get their way. I realize now this is why we remember and glorify people who are the exception to this rule. I don’t wish to end this opinion so negatively. After all, I gained some of the most valuable lessons in my life due to this experience.

I see my fellow Catarina staff members as people that I would trust my life with; peers who I know would never turn their back on me or on any righteous cause. I learned that a small victory can give a soul endless fuel to keep fighting for what it believes in.

I realized this experience has left me with the responsibility to improve the conditions of free speech in my country and the world. But above all, I personally experienced that when you are fighting for a just cause, even when you do not succeed or get what you or society deserved, you can be at peace with your soul and character knowing that you gave all of your heart to help the world become a better place.

Three Battles

by Sonia Corona*

Mexico is the most dangerous place in the American continent to work as a journalist, according to Reporters without Borders. I’m from Mexico, I chose journalism as a career and I was censored last year. It has been hard to stand for my decision of becoming a journalist, but it has been even harder to see my country doesn’t respect my rights and Mexican citizens don’t care about theirs.

I joined my university student paper in 2004. Back then, I was completely convinced that as a reporter, I had the obligation to inform my community and to do my job the best I could. I knew professional journalist were being killed and several cases of censorship were taking place in those years, so I decided to study abroad and learn more about journalism, film and TV production to make sure that I took the right decision.

I went to the U.S. and learned about the First Amendment. Mexico has laws that protect freedom of speech, but I realized that if a constitution protects this right, it also guarantees the right of the people to be informed. When I got back to Mexico at the end of 2005, more censorship cases started to emerge in my country.

The Lost Battles

Three stories about censorship shaped my opinion that human rights’ violations are quite common in Mexico. Moreover, I also noticed Mexicans don’t care about these cases because they ignore their rights, or think these are lost battles.

A ring of power

In 2005, journalist Lydia Cacho wrote a book about a child abuse ring in which several entrepreneurs were involved. Cacho was jailed without warning and was taken by police from Quintana Roo, in southeast Mexico, to Puebla in Central Mexico. Two months later, a recording was broadcast nationwide in which the governor of Puebla, Mario Marin had agreed with one of the entrepreneurs involved in Cacho’s book to accuse and apprehend her for libel. The journalist got out from jail and took a plaintiff to the Mexican Supreme Court for violation of human rights and exercise of press. The Court decided the governor’s actions didn’t violate the law. The governor is still in office, although his abuse of authority and the allegations on Cacho’s book have not been proven false.

Editorial differences

Carmen Aristegui was one of the journalist who decided to broadcast the recordings of the governor in her radio show. Her show gained popularity because she presented stories that were usually omitted in mainstream media, and offered the audience investigative reports and debates on political issues. The show was broadcast nationally until the beginning of this year.

In January, the owners of the station that produced Aristegui’s show asked her to leave the station because of “editorial differences”. However, Aristegui said the owners considered her “too critical” of the government, because she presented the viewpoints of the political opposition. After she left the radio show, the ratings of the radio station fell down. She still hosts an interview show on CNN en Espanol and writes a column for a national newspaper.

Close to home

I was also censored. I was a staff member of the student newspaper La Catarina for three years. While working in this newspaper, I learned how to work as a reporter and news editor, but I also learned how to stand for my freedom of speech.

In 2007, the paper was closed under false justifications, two weeks later it was re-opened. Four months after the re-opening, the staff was entirely replaced by the university administration. This is the short version of what happened in my university’s campus, what our readers could see, what we let pass by.

What they saw was not all that happen.

During La Catarina’s censorship, I wanted to stress out that censorship is not only an authority closing a paper, firing journalists or suing them. It goes further than that. It’s a matter of human rights of journalists and audiences too.

The student newspaper staff had to stand the pressure of the university’s administration before closing the paper. Carmen Aristegui had to go through the pressure of government and Lydia Cacho had to stand the pressure of entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, the audiences stopped receiving news.

The audience usually doesn’t notice the hard times journalists go through. In most cases in Mexico, people hear about journalists who are censored, but never take a minute to think how can they help to stop it.

People, as well as journalists, can stop censorship. If they demand their right to be informed, these cases could decrease. They should ask their representatives in Congress for better laws on human rights and keep their government, entrepreneurs and school officials accountable.

Mexico is still a dangerous place to be a journalist. Despite of what I have seen and gone through, I know that still can change. I am willing to work as a journalist because I want to defend my right to work as one, but also to stand for my rights as a citizen.

Wednesday’s Flashback

by Sergio Zepeda*

Memory, both personal and collective, is essential for the work of justice, and therefore ghosts, as the intermediaries between the dead and the living, are key figures of justice, the heralds, if you will, of a justice that can never present itself .

–Mariana Valverde

We published our newspaper every Wednesday. I arrived to the presses at 10:00 a.m. and helped the staff to manually assemble more than 2,500 copies. The reporters traveled around campus to distribute La Catarina.

“Here you go, sir. I wrote the story on page 3, please write and tell us what you think.”

One night in January, campus police forced us out of the newsroom.

One of the former editors refused to leave. I looked through the window and saw his feet, I realized he was shaking. Short spasms. Ninety kilograms and a Mohawk hid underneath a desk.

“Can you get him out of there?,” one of the campus police officers said. We know he wasn’t asking.

I observed the pictures our journalism teacher took that night. Said’s face is not there. He is talking on a cell phone with his back turned toward the wall. A legal representative of the university is smiling.

I know Said cried underneath that desk, but I can’t remember his face.

The university returned us the newspaper, but issued no apology. We were not censored, they said, we were not forced out. It was just an office relocation and we had exaggerated. A misunderstanding. That was all.

Everything was fine after that. We started writing again, but we never regained our office. We would loose the paper eventually.

We tried to run it for one semester. Teachers and students refused to give interviews. They were afraid.

“Please, just 5 minutes. You won’t get in trouble for speaking about the Physics Congress. We just want to know when and where it’s going to be, the activities you have planned.”

The same thing happened with every story, every week, for four months, until we were threatened.

We were planning a summer issue in June. I had finished my term as the editor in chief and I went home for the break. The university had fired more than 25 employees and accused them of planning a conspiracy to control the university. A new editor was going to publish the story. She was summoned to the president’s office. The president was not there, but his representative told her the story could not be printed. The university owns the newspaper’s name and copyright. The representative said the university would sue us if we published without its approval.

We were forcibly removed. Other students were incorporated into the newspaper. They kept the name.

Every Wednesday I saw a Catarina issue manually assembled and distributed by students.
Every Wednesday I saw people reading it.
Every Wednesday I was again surrounded by campus police officers.
“Can you get him out of there?”

I am now two countries, 4,000 kilometers and 15 months away from January. I read a press release from the university: “La Catarina presents Caotica Ana’, a movie by Julio Menem”. I look at the date. I return, again.

The Red Insect Disease (RID)

by Monica Cruz

(coleopterus mutus)

Until today, the origin of the Red Insect Disease (RID) virus remains uncertain. Based on the oldest cases registered, however, it is believed the virus has existed since the beginning of mankind.

RID is caused by a mutant virus that disguises as a normal blood cell to spread silently but quickly into the immune system. The first reactions of the infection start unexpectedly as the body doesn’t present previous signs. RID can affect people form any age, race and gender, but it commonly affects people who write, speak and read frequently and/or fluently.

Two-hundred-forty-five countries in five continents have registered at least one case of RID.

Symptoms

RID virus can cause instant fever and an sudden increase in the adrenaline levels. As the virus spreads, it sends electric shocks to the central nervous system causing disorders in the ability to write and speak. Other immediate symptoms in its first stages include muteness that could lead to confusion and high levels of anxiety.

The first symptoms end within the first three to four weeks. In extreme cases, the sufferer could present severe injuries or died instantly during the first stage. In the majority of registered cases, latter symptoms of the disease are more subtle and may occur weeks or months after the first reactions.

The patient may present long-term cases of paranoia, depression, low-self esteem and decrease of morality. Normally, physicians struggle with confirming the diagnosis because patients confuse the first symptoms with lesser sicknesses and ignore the second.

Studies show that some sufferers who survive the second stage of the disease may become agitated or fearful when asked to write and speak, others suffer a complete loss of writing abilities and remain mute permanently.

The most challenging issue of RID is that the virus can collect feedback from previous attacks. Although the causes and symptoms have been similar since the first registered cases, RID is still one of the most challenging sickness for modern Medicine.

The virus never attacks in the same place and makes subtle changes in its disguise to pass unrecognized by the immune system. Only after the disease is fully developed, physicians can make an accurate diagnose. Thus, researchers have not yet been able to develop an effective vaccine to prevent it or stop it.

Other effects

Patients with RID can suffer social rejection. As latter symptoms are mainly physiological, patients are often labeled as hypochondriac and/or paranoid. Reports say the patient’s reactions to the symptoms are so unique, only other sufferers can comprehend and recognize a case of RID at first sight.

Outcome and Alternative Treatment

The outcome of patients with RID may vary. Some cases show patients gradually regain physiological health and normal writing and speaking abilities, others don’t recover from the second symptoms and can present chronicle diseases such as extreme fatigue, cynicism and apathy.

In non of the cases, however, patients fully recovered.

RID can be controlled but positive results depend solely on the patient’s will to struggle and fight against the disease for long periods or even a life-time.