New Investigative Journalism Units Expose Corruption in Mexico

Two Knight International projects in 2007 and 2008 have bolstered the ability of Mexico's journalists to investigate corruption. Knight Fellow Ana Arana worked with reporters and editors at the daily El Universal and the magazines Gatopardo and Expansión. She helped them build a new joint investigative unit and databases to produce exposes such as a story on illegal land transfers. At Televisa TV, Knight Fellow Susana Seijas mentored journalists who conducted a prize-winning probe of poverty and health issues.

Susana Seijas works with Mexican journalists to cover "dump dwellers," impoverished citizens who make their homes in city dumps.

HIGHLIGHTS

At El Universal, reporters produced a series on corruption in soccer club management. One story revealed how a land deal for a soccer stadium came at the expense of peasants in the state of Hidalgo.
After the story was published, a community in the state of Pachuca cancelled a similar deal, saving low-income homes from demolition.
Expansión exposed drug companies that unfairly criticized an entrepreneur who was building needed pharmacies in poor communities. The story became the most-read piece on the magazine’s Web site.
A Televisa reporter won the 2008 National Health Reporting prize for a ground-breaking series on the potential of stem cell research aiding cardiac patients – a controversial topic rarely covered in a conservative country.

UPCOMING WORK

Random House plans to publish a book based on a Gatopardo story that showed how Colombian and Mexican drug lords are connected not just by their common business, but by marriages among their children. The story was produced by an investigative team under the direction of Knight Fellow Ana Arana.