Colombia: Drug Lords Gun Down a Free Press

Colombian journalists often find that it’s better to look the other way than become another casualty of the narcotics war.

I have a friend, a very important man in my country, the director and managing editor of the most popular nightly news program. One recent day his secretary came into the office and announced two unscheduled, elegantly dressed visitors.

“How are you, Mr. Valdez?” one visitor said, “We are very pleased to meet you. How is your family? And your kids? Ah, beautiful picture,” he said, picking up a photo of children from the desk. “Is this Maria? She’s lovely. And this is Jose, I suppose. Is he still studying?” he asked, naming the university.

The editor was already nervous.

“Well, we are here with an invitation,” the other man said. “Mr. Pablo Escobar wants to meet you personally and chat for a while. He wants to know if you are available?” He named a date and time.

At this point my friend--a 48-year-old seasoned journalist--said he was trying not to wet his pants.

When a Colombian journalist receives an invitation from a well-known drug lord, he doesn’t say no--not if he values life. The editor cleared his calendar.

On the appointed day, he was ushered into Escobar’s suite. Scotch in hand, calm as possible, my friend listened closely to his host.

“I like your news program. I watch it every night. But there is something I don’t like. Every time you show my picture, you use a photographic trick that makes me appear behind bars. Now this is not fair. As you can see, I am a free man. And you are not a judge.”

Escobar had a point. Even though he is one of the most celebrated suspects in the world, he sits in no jail. Even though he has been linked to the most notorious assassinations and murders in his country, he has never been convicted. Even though he is considered by many to be the boss of one of the world’s largest drug cartels, he remains one of Colombia’s most powerful underground businessmen.

Since their chat, the man’s face never appears behind bars when my friend cannot avoid putting Escobar in the news. The program’s reporters and anchors have learned to attach the word “alleged” when linking Escobar’s name to drug trafficking. And my own stories about narcotics are submitted to rigorous editorial review before broadcast.

My friend--whose name has been changed here for his protection--puts it this way: “If the government, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the police haven’t been able to arrest and convict Escobar, why should I?”

He doesn’t want to join many colleagues who have been forced to flee the country under threat of death. He doesn’t want to open his mail and find a black-bordered condolence note announcing his imminent demise. He doesn’t want to end up as the new name on the list of 30 killed journalists. Only last March, Hector Giraldo Galvez, columnist for Colombia’s second-largest daily newspaper, was machine-gunned for his outspoken opposition to the drug lords.

Another friend, covering the supposedly fair fields of sport, explained it this way:

“If you ask me if I have seen or know anything about ‘dirty’ money in professional sports, I will say no. And it’s the truth, I have heard many things but I haven’t had the time to investigate.”

Colombian journalists missed two of the biggest stories of recent years looking the other way.

A major scandal in Colombia’s national sport--professional soccer--remained hidden until late 1988. The kidnaping of a referee triggered an inquiry by soccer officials. What the investigators found was that since 1983 the drug lords had been buying up many of the country’s teams, to fight metaphorical wars with one another on the soccer fields. This was a story even a cowed press could no longer avoid.

An even bigger scandal broke in February when a rumor that had been circulating for years was confirmed in the press. Gen. Guillermo Medina Sanchez, head of the national police force, had reportedly retired with honors. Then came the news: He had been forced to resign after the president learned that Medina had been serving as a stooge for the drug Mafia.

Yet the publication that broke this stunning story--long an open secret among Colombian reporters--was a U.S. news weekly, Time. Colombian media jumped all over the matter only after it had appeared in another country’s publication.

Colombia is renowned among Latin nations for a long tradition of press freedom. There is no official censorship of any kind. But the drug lords’ success at intimidation and the government’s resulting impotence have created a new approach to journalism when it comes to covering drugs. Self-imposed inhibition may turn out to be as corrupting as open censorship .

The current issue of the Colombia Journalism Review carries a survey by the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights: “Seventy-eight percent of the 1,500 journalists polled censored their own work. Some dropped their bylines from drug-related stories. Editors regularly cut their own reporters’ controversial articles when they can run stories on similar subjects from foreign papers. Some even work under the protection of bodyguards.” An enterprising doctoral student could develop a fascinating thesis about the effects of drugs on the practice of Colombian journalism. But many practicing journalists in Colombia could pose a practical question: Who is crazy enough to put his life on the line to defend the principle of freedom of the press? Thirty who have are not around to discuss it.

Covering a declared war is one thing. Sometimes it can even be romantic. Young reporters dream about the conflicts that shape the likes of Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam--jumping from helicopters under fire and dodging bullets in rice paddies to get the real story. Inside Colombia, many reporters cover a guerrilla war just as life-threatening as Vietnam was for another generation. The Colombians’ stories are honest. Their bravery is beyond question. Like the Sheehans and Halberstams, these Colombians accept risk under fire and remain reasonably confident about surviving to tell the story.

The drug trade, by contrast, represents another kind of war, where journalists are considered a legitimate and likely target. Covering this war with weapons of truth and commitment can be a way to commit suicide.