It is a cool morning in Tijuana at the bright pink El Sol de Tijuana newspaper building where we met Giovanny Urenda. He’s a general assignment reporter for the paper. A journeyman in the newsroom, who will be reporting on three stories this day.
“I love my job — despite all the situations one sometimes has to go through,” Urenda said.
He is from Tijuana, and described his hometown this way: “It is a city of opportunity. We are currently going through a difficult economic situation across all of Mexico and it is certainly felt here in Tijuana but the city has its good sides, its noble qualities. That’s Tijuana for you. It has always welcomed anyone who arrives.”
Urenda is bearded and barrel chested. He types like he’s punching his keyboard, writing a few questions for his next assignment. On his desk are some lucha libre figurines and a New England Patriots souvenir helmet.
At Urenda's left are a few refreshments: a water bottle, a can of coke, one half-gone Penafiel orange soda and two bottles of tequila.
And then there was the filing cabinet with memorial stickers for Tijuana journalists Margarito Martinez and Lourdes Maldonado, murdered just days apart in 2022.
Urenda was a new reporter at the time of the killings, on the job for just seven months.
“I remember we were upstairs at the time and a colleague remarked to me, ‘They killed Margarito.’ I said, "I don't know who that is, but I'm told he was a photographer,” Urenda said.
The stickers on the filing cabinet are a reminder of the risks faced by journalists in Mexico.
A dangerous place for journalists
Reporters Without Borders calls Mexico "one of the world’s most dangerous and deadly countries for journalists," with two killed there so far this year. Eight were killed in the first six months of 2025. The organization's online data goes back to 1995 and shows 185 journalist have been killed in Mexico since then.
The memory of Tijuanapress.com director and editor Vicente Calderon goes even farther back. "I began (in journalism) in 1985 and by 1988 I was aware of my first colleague being killed: Hector 'Gato' Félix,” Calderon said.
Héctor “Gato” Félix Miranda helped to found the famous investigative weekly Zeta Tijuana. Under the name "Félix el Gato," or "Felix the Cat," he wrote a column criticizing Tijuana politicians. Two men were convicted in his murder.
“When you see that there are consequences, people think twice. We haven't seen that in the recent killings in Mexico and here in Tijuana,” Calderon said.
The bookshelves in Calderon’s office are filled with old cameras, old tape recorders, books and journalism awards. He was named Journalist of the Year in 2022 by the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which praised him not only for his years of assisting San Diego journalists, but for being brave despite the dangers faced in his city.
On assignment
Urenda's first assignment of the day is a meeting of the Comité Ciudadano de Seguridad Pública de Tijuana — the Tijuana Citizen Public Security Committee.
He dives right into questioning committee president Edgardo Flores Campbell.
“How long will your predecessor last? And why is it important to be doing this?” Urenda asks.
Journeyman reporting, like covering committee meetings, isn't the only kind of journalism in Tijuana.
Joebeth Terriquez, nicknamed Joe Black, is a photojournalist specializing in social issues. We met up with him at the migrant shelter Movimiento Juventud 2000.
He’s known for immersing himself in his work. “I used to sleep in the camp with them and still I do that sometimes,” Terriquez said.
Time equals access for Terriquez. But that comes with its own set of dangers.
“If you want to be a journalist, this type of journalist, you got to know that some day, because of what you’re doing, something is going to go terribly wrong,” Terriquez said.
Mexico's 'mechanism' to defend journalists
Mexico has a system to protect journalists, called the Mecanismo de Protección Para Personas Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas. It was created in 2012. At the time, the organization Justice in Mexico said the system established mechanisms "to evacuate or temporarily remove, provide body guards for, and protect the property of such individuals in danger given their line of work."
In 2019, Tijuana journalist Lourdes Maldonado stood up at a Mexico City news conference and told the then-president of Mexico she feared for her life, asking him "for your support, help, and labor justice."
She was shot in front of her Tijuana home on Jan. 23, 2022, five days after the killing of Margarito Martínez. He was also shot in front of his home in Tijuana. Three people were arrested and convicted in Maldonado's murder, and two in the Martinez killing.
But since those murders, Calderon said being a journalist isn’t any safer — and there is a new kind of threat on the rise.
“Legal harassment or the stigmatization from the government, politicians complaining about journalists being 'sicarios (hired assassins) of the pen'. Those things are making the situation more complicated,” Calderon said.
And threats of physical violence have not stopped. Terriquez says his wife has asked him to quit.
“My wife she kind of told me to drop it because I got a lot of threats … She knows that if they kill me it’s because I did something right,” Terriquez said.
In spite of the threats, Terriquez will dodge Tijuana traffic to get a photo and Urenda will question authority. Through it all, Calderon says there is hope.
“When the authorities are not paying attention, when things are not going according to the law, they call the reporters. And the reporters from Tijuana are answering,” Calderon said.
