Mexico's Resilient Journalists

Julieta Brambila provides a ground-level view of how Mexican journalists have navigated a perilous environment, offering insight into how they protect themselves while reporting on the most critical and sensitive subjects.

Julieta Brambila is a media scholar and public servant who holds a PhD in communication from the University of Leeds. She currently serves as head of communication and public affairs at Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography and was previously head of communication at the Mexican Ministry of Finance.

Barbie Zelizer, Raymond Williams Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania:
This book is critical for understanding how the mirage-like nature of shaky democracies allows violence to pervade journalism. Brambila’s descriptions and analyses of the dangers facing Mexican journalists offer a blueprint for their survival that empowers them by focusing on teamwork and resilience. An important read for those concerned with the future of journalism in democracies—unstable or otherwise.

John Nerone, professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
Nowhere in recent years have journalists been more at risk than Mexico, and no one has explained that situation better than Julieta Brambila. Based on years of intensive research and interviews with working journalists, Mexico's Resilient Journalists is a compelling account of the perils Mexican newsmakers encounter and their creative strategies for dealing with them. Anyone who values the central role of news media in public life will admire this book.

Sallie Hughes, author of Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico:
Very few studies of the Mexican press or violence against journalists in general have been able to move beyond description to offer general frameworks for understanding what types of journalists are vulnerable to attack and why. Brambila does that and, in this way, offers lessons for all of journalism studies while paying homage to the particular human rights crisis that has racked the journalists in her country for nearly two decades.

Roderic Ai Camp, coauthor of Politics in Mexico: The Path of a New Democracy:
The press plays an essential role in a democracy. Mexico's Resilient Journalists explores a variety of original and imaginative responses among Mexican journalists to the extreme violence they have faced in the last two decades. Julieta Brambila’s extensive firsthand interviews, conducted under dangerous circumstances, are extraordinary, shedding light on how Mexican journalists have succeeded in mitigating risk. Anyone interested in the impact of the press on an evolving democracy should read this book.