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“…the media, specially the press, began to keep count of the death toll related to the war on drugs, based on journalistic reports, precisely because the government didn’t gave official figures”.
By Gabriel Infante Carrillo
Columnist
In my last commentary Calderon is not Mexico!, I commented about the discomfort of President Felipe Calderon regarding to the media coverage on the war on drugs, which according to him they have given a lot of attention to the violent actions committed by the members of the drug cartels, and this have cause a negative perception abroad, since it have been over exaggerated the situation of violence and insecurity in the country.
At the beginning of this “face to face battle” against the criminal organization that president Calderon launched in 2006, the media, specially the press, began to keep count of the death toll related to the war on drugs, based on journalistic reports, precisely because the government didn’t gave official figures. As months passed by, many newspapers stopped keeping track of the death toll, perhaps by editorial decision, but the only media that continue with a daily count was Milenio Television, in which it has been for the last 40 months a reference to measure in some form the level of violence that exists in the country related to this war without path. This death toll count could come to an end, because surprisingly on Tuesday April 13th we learned of the shocking official death toll of the Secretary of Federal Public Security (SSPF) of 22,743 people killed from December 2006 up to date, denoting that the figure of Milenio Television linger behind with 19,718. This have put them in an editorial dilemma if they should continue or not their death toll count.
What makes it interesting all of this, is that the government decided to release a death toll number superior to what the media reports, but this figure contradicts what President Felipe Calderon said, that the media coverage has "over exaggerated" the situation of violence and insecurity that prevails in the country. There is not doubt that this official death toll of the SSPF will not do any good to improve the image of the country.
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