Bernardo Loyola describes the book Dying for the Truth, based on Blog del Narco:
According to the book, in 2012, their website—whose aim is to collect uncensored articles and images about the Mexican cartel’s extreme violence, their activities, and the government’s fight against them—registered an average of 25 million visits a month. According to Alexa, it is one of the most visited sites in Mexico. Although criticized by some media outlets for publishing gory images and information that’s given to them by cartels (such as executions and video messages aimed at rival organizations), the blog has become an essential source of news for journalists, citizens, and visitors.
Loyola interviewed the site’s female editor, anonymously, about where traditional media in Mexico have failed the public:
People began to wake up, to realize there’s a shoot-out going on two blocks away from their home and they’re seeing nothing about it in the news or in the papers. Citizens realize drug traffickers have set up a road block on the main avenue in broad daylight and no one is covering that. People got angry with the traditional media and started using the blog as a means to express what’s going on. That’s what it was created for, so that people could use it to their advantage, to protect themselves. If no one will take care of us, we’ll take care of ourselves.
From an excerpt of the book on the threats the site’s editor and programmer have endured:
Shortly before we completed this book, two people – a young man and woman who worked with us – were disemboweled and hung off a bridge in Tamaulipas, a state in the north of Mexico. Large handwritten signs, known as narcobanners, next to their bodies mentioned our blog, and stated that this was what happened to internet snitches. The message concluded with a warning that we were next. A few days later, they executed another journalist in Tamaulipas who regularly sent us information. The assassins left keyboards, a mouse, and other computer parts strewn across her body, as well as a sign that mentioned our blog again.
However, we refuse to be intimidated. Until writing this, we have never confirmed that we knew these people, so as not to let the narcoterrorists think we are scared or influenced in any way by their threats. We would never give criminals that satisfaction. Yet the attacks continue. In the last four days, they’ve sent us photos of nine people, dead, with messages on their skin that read: “You’re next, BDN.”
(Photo: Closeup on one of the corpses of two murdered men found near the Costera Avenue in Acapulco, Mexico, on February 5, 2011. By Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 