A binational Border Hub program is hosting a forum in Sonora, Mexico, Friday to help local journalists bolster their investigative reporting skills. The project is meant to give Mexican journalists tools to safely fight corruption and support transparency in the border region.
The Border Hub is a project of the U.S.-based groups International Center For Journalists and the Border Center for Journalists and Bloggers, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Border Hub launched last year to help reporters working in Mexican border states, like Sonora, investigate stories about corruption and publish those stories without compromising their safety.
"It's essential that activists and journalists are able to do their work safely - carrying out investigations, exposing corruption, influencing politics, but always safeguarding their physical and emotional integrity," said Marlene Leon, coordinator for the Border Hub project and an investigator with the anti-corruption nonprofit Sinaloa Initiative.
Leon said reporters and activists in Mexico regularly come under threat from both criminal and political groups for their work. The forum Friday will focus on how reporters can remain safe while holding government leaders accountable.
