Word: el
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...agreement fell apart under competitive pressures and the feeling of some reporters that others failed to contribute their fair share. In any case, it is a virtual impossibility for reporters to work in complete anonymity, and most Colombian journalists simply shoulder the risk. Says Enrique Santos Calderon, an El Tiempo columnist and Sunday editor who spent several months in self-imposed exile following a bombing at his home, then returned to his outspoken ways: "We journalists aren't soldiers, but we have become the first line of defense...
...liberal daily El Espectador saw its editor-owner assassinated in 1986. Five employees have been slain since. The paper was bombed twice, most recently in September; the $2.5 million damage tally included destruction of the computer system and presses. Yet El Espectador has not missed a day of publication and has kept up the drumbeat against the cartels. Even harder hit was the country's second oldest newspaper, the Bucaramanga-based Vanguardia Liberal, which supported the government's crackdown and was all but destroyed in an Oct. 15 bombing. It too kept on publishing. "We are not heroes," says El...
Broadcast journalists are perhaps the most at risk. Pool techniques do not work for on-the-air reporters, who can be identified by their faces or voices. Despite Pulido's bravery, many print-news executives, in fact, share the feeling of El Espectador director Juan Guillermo Cano, 35. Says he: "I think the radio people are more intimidated, and it shows in their reporting." In some cases, darker forces than fear may be at work. A small radio network, Radial 2000, was listed among the business interests of Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, the Bogota Mafia superchief who is wanted by authorities...
...fiercest division within the ranks of journalism is between the majority who support all-out war against the drug lords and those, notably the owners of Medellin's El Colombiano, who prefer a negotiated truce. In 1984, when he was still editor of the paper, Juan Gomez Martinez wrote, "To sit down with these despicable people, who are wanted by justice, is dishonest. It would twist the values of our country. It is an immoral and terrifying proposition." Gomez -- whose title became publisher when he was elected mayor of Medellin in 1988 -- has turned into a leading advocate of government...
...Salgar were among a group of Colombian journalists who were in New York City last week to discuss the battle between drug lords and reporters under the sponsorship of New York University and the International Press Institute. Their goal was to remind the world that their nation is, as El Tiempo said, "not a cave of thieves but the major victim of the international drug trade." Potent as their words were, more potent still was the harrowing image of Pulido cut down on his way home from an honest day's work in a land ravaged by dishonor...