THE BORDER REPORT

First thing I have to do is apologize for not getting that Question and Answer session up; frankly, I received a ton of responses and I'm trying to give detailed answers to each one. But on top of that, I'm in the process of re-designing the Web site and I may as well put this out now, I'm in the process of seeking advertisers for Border Reporter. My aim is to give you news from the Arizona-Sonora border you won't find anywhere else. We'll see if you're hungry enough for it to invest in an ad or two. Maybe it's also time to put up that PayPal link I've been threatening to place for months now ... But on top of the news, I'll be posting larger photos, maps, and the news will also be delivered in Spanish, thanks to a good friend who's agreed to help with translation services. Es todo, I'll have those Q&A up tomorrow and next week you will positively freak when you see what I have for you in a Special Report. I do want to add this parting tidbit: the third largest paper in Sonora, Cambio Sonora, has chosen to shut down for a month until there's a climate in Sonora "where journalism can be practiced without the risk of death," according to the paper's managing editor Roberto Gutierrez. Cambio Sonora has twice been grenaded in the past couple months; though nobody has been injured in either attack. I am wondering about the politics of the newspaper's decision and I wonder if all is as it seems. It's so hard to tell sometimes with these major decisions. For instance, why shut down for a month? As a protest? Or in an agenda? The newspaper was owned by colleagues of Manlio Fabio Beltrones and was sold late last year to Organizacíon Editorial Mexicana, a newspaper chain in Mexico. Some believe that the hostilities between Beltrones and Gov. Eduardo Bours led to some editorial decisions on the pages of the paper. Beltrones is the second most powerful man in the Mexican government; president of the Senate. He is also the former governor of Sonora and target of a hit-piece by The New York Times, who won a 1997 Pulitzer Prize for linking him to Latin America druglord Amado Carrillo Fuentes. On the other hand, Cambio was the only paper that reported drug seizures discovered in the cargos of Bachoco, a Bours family chicken operation in Ciudad Obregon. We'll have to see how this shakes out.

-- Michael Marizco