Intersections

The next phase: Vice Mexico

* End of the line: a concha below the volcanos at the terminus of Line 12, Tlahuac, Dec. 31, 2012.

As I said on Twitter on Friday, cuz I couldn't hold it in any longer, I'm soon joining Vice as editor of Vice Mexico. I'm pretty pinche stoked and I appreciate all the well-wishes.

I've spent three years reporting stories in Mexico, the region, and sometimes on Mexico-related topics north of the border from the Los Angeles Times bureau here in Mexico City. On top of that, I've been contributing steadily to a bunch of magazines and radio, Web, and video outlets, all places I love.

It's been rad. But, man, I needed to make a move! And I think I've made a good one. Vice is expanding, not contracting. It has vision, huevos, and, most importantly for anyone who wants to do good journalism, cash.

Talks started informally months ago, and it's been a fully pro negotiation and transition with Vice Mexico publisher Eduardo Valenzuela and the head of content here, Bernardo Loyola. I've also been contributing pieces to Vice's New York headquarters, so I'm looking forward to working more closely with the editors at the hub.

For more context, check out these highlights from a recent profile on Vice by The New Yorker, including interesting comments from players such as CEO Shane Smith: 

 

Rupert Murdoch, after his visit, tweeted, "Who's heard of Vice Media? Wild, interesting effort to interest millennials who don't read or watch established media. Global success."

[...]

"Part of the reason Vice is successful is because we have cash to make stuff. Everyone else is just fucking wandering around trying to find budgets to make their dream project."

[...]

"[T]he nice thing about Vice is that it's the future and it's already very profitable."

[...]

McInnes told me, "My big thing was I want you to do stupid in a smart way and smart in a stupid way. So if you’re going to Palestine, try to find a good burger joint. Don't talk about Israel and the borders, 1967, Gaza -- just find a good burger joint. Conversely, if you're gonna do a thing on farts or poo, talk to experts in digestion, find out the history of what we know about farts, why they smell. Be super-scientific and get all the data. Which is what we did with 'The Vice Guide to Shit.'"

[...]

Vice is opening bureaus as quickly as traditional-media organizations are closing them.

[...]

Smith told me, "It used to be, back in the day, that news was the most profitable of all shows that the networks did. The Gulf War built CNN. There's a lot of conceptions that news doesn't make money, that young people don’t care about news. But young people obviously care about news -- that's why we're successful."

[...]

Still, if Vice is the future of media, it might be argued that, for all its faults, it's no worse than what we already have. For anyone accustomed to the current offerings on cable news -- with its twenty-four-hour cycles and blow-dried personalities rehashing wire reports -- it's hard not to be impressed by Vice's vitality and by some of the topics that it covers firsthand.

 

Pretty G. ...

My top priority is to always challenge myself, challenge my craft. I'll be editing an established publication again more than ten years after my "EIC" days at the college paper. But, hugely, my primary audience for the first time will be hispano-hablantes en México y Latinoamerica. That's a crazy challenge for this die-hard pocho and I'm eager to take it on!

Admittedly, there's a nostalgia factor also at work here. I grew up checking out Vice as a teenager, picking it up once it started appearing at skate-, head-, and record shops in my hometown. When I lived in L.A., I was around when lil Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter started showing up at the Vice store parties at Sunset Junction. Through friends, I met and really fell in love with one of Vice's original muses, lil baby Dash, and I still think fondly of the time we shared in L.A. with K. Garcia and Nina T., the trouble we'd get into. ... Que descanse en paz.

The magazine, the brand, the broader ambitions of Vice Media have morphed so much, it's remarkable. I am honored to get a chance at joining what I suspect will become a long tradition of good, fucked-up reportage. I start on Monday. Got a story idea?

Gay rights activists in Mexico City accuse police of abuses

** Originally published May 17 at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Same-sex marriage is legal in this city. Gay and lesbian couples can adopt children, and the government touts tolerance and respect for "sexual diversity" in messages posted on subway platforms and bus billboards.

Yet, according to Jonathan Zamora, a 31-year-old psychologist, the advancement of gay rights in Mexico's capital in recent years conceals an ugly, persistent problem: unchecked discrimination and violence in what is, on paper at least, one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.

Early on March 15, Zamora alleges, he was detained while walking home by police who beat and jailed him for hours.

Zamora says he was not drinking in public, was fully clothed and only blocks from his door after a night out with friends. When he asked officers why he was stopped, Zamora says one of them told him it was for being gay, using a Mexican slur for homosexuals.

When Zamora reached his home later that afternoon -- bruised and without his belongings, which he said were confiscated -- he posted photos of his injuries online. Thus, a campaign began targeting what gay rights activists call police discrimination in Mexico City, as well as reports of homophobic threats and violence on the streets.

"I thought my case was isolated, but we know it's not," Zamora said in a recent interview at a cafe in Mexico City's refurbished historic center. "There are so many other cases like mine, and they keep coming to me .... Some [people] have even lost their lives."

The spokesman's office for Mexico City's police department declined to answer questions about Zamora's case. But city prosecutors said they were aware of the case and that an investigation was underway.

On Friday, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera was taking part in an event to roll out new protocols for the police that are intended to ensure that the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are respected. 

Zamora's complaint is one of numerous reported incidents of violence or discrimination against the gay community in Mexico City in recent months.

In mid-January, gunmen held up an upscale men's bathhouse near the ritzy Polanco district. Men identifying themselves online as customers of the bathhouse later complained of abuse at the hands of police who responded.

At least three men have been reported killed or found dead after confrontations near gay bars since the start of the year, according to police reports.

Zamora, a native of a middle-class suburb northwest of Mexico City, offered chilling details of his detention. He said the officers who stopped him drove around aimlessly for at least an hour before delivering him to a jail cell. At one point, Zamora alleges, one of the officers said he could be set free if he performed oral sex on them.

Hours later, alone in a cell, Zamora said he began kicking a door to demand his release. He still hadn't been told what crime led to his detention, he said, and hadn't been permitted to make a phone call.

He claimed four officers entered his cell and proceeded to punch and kick him. Zamora said he was then taken to a hospital, examined, returned to a police station and let go, ending an ordeal that lasted about eight hours.

"In my case, it wasn't just about a lack of training, it was a lack of everything," he said. "How can you hire people who are aggressive, violent, who don't behave like community?"

New police protocols published Thursday instruct officers to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people "with respect for human rights" and to respect their "gender identity." They also prohibit the use of insulting language or degrading comments.

"First, the police have to recognize that we're people," said Jaime Lopez Vela, a longtime gay rights activist who helped draft the new rules. "We've been talking about this for years. It's been on the agenda, and sadly, it's been expedited by the recent aggressions."

More than two months after his arrest, Zamora says he is still waiting for justice. The officers who allegedly detained and beat him have been identified, but no charges or disciplinary measures have been announced. Meanwhile, he's turned to Facebook, Twitter and Change.org to keep the public’s eye on his case.

"Any moment that your dignity, your values, your rights are broken, you must raise your voice," Zamora said.

Latino USA: Pochos in Chilangolandia

From Latino USA:

Commentator Daniel Hernandez is a pocho, a Mexican-American, living in Mexico City. But lately he’s noticed he’s not the only one, and the line between pochos and chilangos, what Mexico City natives call themselves, is blurring.

Go here for the link and audio file for my latest commentary for Latino USA on National Public Radio. Readers, are you a pocho in Chilangolandia as well? * Previously, “On voting for the first time for president in Mexico.”

** Photo: The crossing at San Ysidro into Tijuana, January 2012.

In Mexico, an obsession with Obama's 'beast' of a limo

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY — They were tweeting about it, turning it into memes and ogling it in real life along the route that President Obama took from Mexico City's airport to the colonial front gate of the National Palace.

Throughout Obama's visit, which ended Friday, the president's super-armored presidential limousine, nicknamed "The Beast" when it was unveiled four years ago, almost stole the show from the cool and cordial display of diplomacy between Obama and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

When Obama stepped off Air Force One and hopped into the customized state Cadillac, one cable newscaster on Mexico's Foro TV called it a "spectacular vehicle." Broadcasters on a variety of channels seemed to mention The Beast —  La Bestia in Spanish — as frequently as they could.

And they were also talking about it in Costa Rica, where Obama was headed after his morning forums with Mexican students and businesses.

Maybe it's that famed American engineering stirring up the fascination? Or could it have to do with Mexicans' similar obsession with the popemobile whenever the Holy Father comes to town?

"We came to try to see the car, La Bestia," said tourist Daniel Castillo, a 33-year-old port worker from Tamaulipas state who was standing outside the National Palace with his wife after Obama and Peña Nieto departed Thursday afternoon. "Don't really care for ... that señor," Castillo added, referring to the U.S. president.

News cameramen on motorcycles chased The Beast as it passed some of Mexico City's toughest neighborhoods along its speediest highways. Infographics on La Bestia adorned news sites, with journalists noting the elaborate features, such as a blood supply in case of an attack.

In a cruel twist, there was another vehicle nicknamed La Bestia making headlines in Mexico this week: The freight train that chugs along the rain forests and backcountry of eastern Mexico, carrying vulnerable migrants from Central America on an often deadly attempt to reach the United States.

On Wednesday, migrants were again attacked by suspected drug gangs, this time near the city of Coatzacoalcos in  Veracruz state. At least nine were seriously injured by men armed with machetes and firearms who tried to extort $100 from each of the travelers, The Times reported.

According to accounts, some migrants were thrown from the train for refusing to pay. In recent years, tens of thousands have gone missing while traveling along La Bestia's tracks.

"Now isn't it curious that Obama's limo is called La Bestia, just like the train that takes thousands of migrants from Chiapas?" a politician wondered on Twitter, referring to Mexico's border state with Guatemala.

Castillo, the tourist, said cartel violence fueled by U.S. demand for drugs has made it too dangerous to travel from Puerto Altamira, where he lives, to the border to visit Texas. He and his wife now prefer vacationing in the "center of the country."

Obama "should stay over there and fix his own country's problems," Castillo huffed.

His wife, Irene Gomez, said the couple hasn't seen some family members in the United States in years. Most of her relatives left Mexico to flee the drug violence, she said.

"Everyone is going to the United States because the insecurity is so bad," said Gomez, 34. "And what are they doing over there? They're deporting people, separating families."

Once Obama's "beast" had departed the National Palace on Thursday, the low fencing placed around the Zocalo square was removed and pedestrians gradually reclaimed the plaza that has been at the heart of national identity here for centuries.

A few passersby hurled curses at the front door of the palace as soldiers emerged for the customary evening flag ceremony. For some, the awe of the La Bestia faded away and reality set in once more.

* Photo by AP via LAT.

Small growth for Mexico's economy in first quarter of 2013

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's economy grew only 1% in real terms in the first quarter of 2013, the Finance Ministry said Thursday, a stark result for government economists who continue to project Mexico will grow by 3.5% for the year overall.

The figure represents a "deceleration," economists at the Finance Ministry said in a news conference. They laid the blame mostly on external factors, such as growth rates in the United States.

The news of a slowdown came as Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration hosts President Obama for the first time Thursday and Friday, with the intertwined national economies high on the binational agenda. The two leaders held a news conference Thursday at the National Palace in the heart of the historic center in Mexico City. On Friday, Obama will deliver a speech to students at the capital's Anthropology Museum.

Other financial signals looked grim for Mexico as Obama arrived here, contrasting with an aggressive media campaign meant to boost global confidence in Mexico's economy. Retail sales have dropped and industrial output has slowed in the first months of 2013, financial news reports said.

In another indicator that hits at the wallets of Mexico's workers and consumers, the inflation rate hit 4.25% in March, an almost 68% increase over December 2012, Mexican economists said.

* Photo by AP via LAT.