Why are journalists threatened and killed? A portrait of neo-paramilitary anti-press violence in Colombia's Bajo Cauca. (April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Charles, Mathew
• Is Part Of: Journalism. Volume 23:Number 4(2022)
• Page Start: 841
• Page End: 857
• Publication Date: 2022-04
• Subjects: anti-press violence -- citizenship -- Colombia -- conflict -- democracy -- press freedom; Journalism -- Periodicals; Journalism -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 070.405
• DOI: 10.1177/1464884920928172
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1464-8849

Abstract

Anti-press violence in Colombia's Bajo Cauca is an inherent part of the structures, which underpin the region's alternative social ( dis )order. Through ethnographic interviews with four members of Colombia's neo-paramilitary group, Los Urabeños, who have perpetrated attacks against journalists, this study argues that anti-press violence can co-exist alongside a sense of respect for journalism. It identifies a direct link between a journalist's style of reporting and the level of risk to which they might be exposed, as well as between neo-paramilitary decisions to kill or intimidate and the level of law enforcement in operation. It is argued that anti-press violence is connected to the perpetrators' democratic and economic survival. In these circumstances, anti-press violence is presented as a tool of criminal governance to maintain the alternative social ( dis )order and protect the neo-paramilitaries' brutal act of 'insurgent citizenship'. Such analysis moves beyond the consideration of the wider democratic implications of anti-press violence to provide a more nuanced understanding of the provocative, deliberative and structural determinants, which underpin it on the violent margins of Colombia.