Latest / Journey to the Fringe / Fringey Mini: Mexican Environmental Journalist Murder

Transcript

Fringey Mini: Mexican Environmental Journalist Murder · Journey to the Fringe

• 0:00
  You know what? I kept having this mini that I
• 0:02
  kept telling you that I wasn't ready for and
• 0:06
  you know what? I'm finally ready for it because
• 0:09
  I found a better article for it. I researched
• 0:13
  it and I feel like I am finally ready for it.
• 0:16
  This is from CPJ .org and it is titled Mexican
• 0:22
  environmental journalist Alex Serna found dead
• 0:26
  in Zihuatanejo. I found this from another website
• 0:30
  that didn't do it justice that he was an environmental
• 0:33
  Journalist they called him an influencer And
• 0:37
  that's why I said that I wasn't ready to give
• 0:39
  it to you because of the way that they framed
• 0:41
  the death That is a shitty way to describe it
• 0:44
  was very bad And so kept telling you that I wasn't
• 0:47
  ready for it yet because I felt like I needed
• 0:49
  to look into it a little bit more Mexico City
• 0:52
  July 9th 2026 this is from an actual Committee
• 0:58
  to Protect Journalists website. So I don't have
• 1:02
  an actual person that wrote the article, but
• 1:05
  I will send it to you, Taylor, to link it up.
• 1:08
  Mexico City, July 9, 2026. Mexican authorities
• 1:12
  must immediately, incredibly investigate the
• 1:15
  killing of environmental journalists and content
• 1:18
  creator Manuel Alejandro Mora Serna. and determined
• 1:23
  whether he was attacked in relation to his work
• 1:26
  as a reporter, the Committee to Protect Journalists
• 1:30
  say Friday. The Guerrero State Human Rights Commission,
• 1:34
  CDHEG, confirmed in a July 3rd statement on Facebook
• 1:38
  that Serna's body was found June 22nd in Zihuatanejo,
• 1:43
  in the southern state of Guerrero, according
• 1:45
  to news reports, though the date has not been
• 1:49
  confirmed to state authorities. He had been reported
• 1:51
  According missing on June 20th, according to
• 1:54
  the same news reports, which added that Serna's
• 1:57
  body showed signs of torture. Quote, the shocking
• 2:00
  killing of Alex Serna is the third of a Mexican
• 2:03
  journalist in less than a month, underscoring
• 2:06
  Mexico's abysmal status as the most dangerous
• 2:09
  country for the press in the Western Hemisphere,
• 2:12
  end quote, said Jan Albert Hutson, CPJ's Mexico
• 2:16
  representative. Quote, once again, Mexican authorities
• 2:20
  must show that they are willing and able to end
• 2:22
  the cycle of violence and impunity that continues
• 2:25
  to plague the nation's press." Alejandro Cerno,
• 2:29
  known locally as Alex, combined work as a content
• 2:33
  creator, investigative journalist, and environmental
• 2:35
  activist out of Zihuatanejo, a coastal city popular
• 2:39
  with tourists in the southern Mexican state of
• 2:42
  Guerrero, according to news report. He published
• 2:45
  mainly on his personal pages on Facebook and
• 2:47
  YouTube, Instagram, where he had a combined total
• 2:50
  of almost 200 ,000 followers. On his pages, Cerno
• 2:53
  reported and commented on environmental issues
• 2:56
  often tied to allegations of corruption of local
• 2:59
  businesses and politicians. Most recently, he
• 3:02
  uploaded videos about a foreign -held company
• 3:05
  allegedly extracting water from the Zihuatanejo
• 3:08
  area without proper permits, the Zihuatanejo
• 3:12
  municipal government allegedly removing trees
• 3:15
  for commercial purposes, and the Zihuatanejo
• 3:18
  seaport demolishing a local pier allegedly without
• 3:21
  permit. On March 4th, Serna posted a screenshot
• 3:24
  of a death threat he had received. He said the
• 3:27
  sender was a relative of Zihuatanejo Mayor Lizette
• 3:31
  Tapia Castro, whom he regularly accused of corruption.
• 3:36
  Several phone calls to CPJ of Tapia's office
• 3:39
  for comment were not answered. Phone calls to
• 3:42
  the Guerrero State Prosecutor's Office, FGE,
• 3:47
  for comment were not answered. An official at
• 3:50
  the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human
• 3:53
  Rights Defenders and Journalists which coordinated
• 4:14
  So that's the end of the article. It doesn't
• 4:17
  go into quite the amount of detail that I wanted
• 4:20
  to about it, but no, but it's still enough to
• 4:23
  know that like there's some shitty things and
• 4:25
  Very shitty things happening. It seems like this
• 4:29
  government official is so unconcerned With it
• 4:32
  coming back to them that they use a family member
• 4:35
  to perform hits yeah it does really seem like
• 4:38
  that. Now let me just read to you and this is
• 4:41
  why I told you that I wasn't entirely ready because
• 4:45
  I did get this from Reddit and it did catch my
• 4:49
  eye which is this article that was originally
• 4:52
  posted which is from the tab .com which is titled
• 4:57
  quote influencer who shared sinister threats
• 5:01
  to his life found dead after being brutally tortured
• 5:05
  caught my eye and it wasn't until I started breathing
• 5:09
  the comments that people were commenting that
• 5:13
  this deserves a little more thought than influencer
• 5:19
  because he was actually an environmental activist
• 5:22
  reporting on things that would actually killed.
• 5:25
  So that's why I said that it deserved a little
• 5:27
  more thought. I actually shared that. I saved
• 5:31
  that article and then went back and looked at
• 5:33
  it and found a better source for it, which was
• 5:36
  what I actually read to you. This is one I'm
• 5:39
  actually happy that I went back on instead of
• 5:42
  just reading to you what I had. Yeah, fair enough.
• 5:45
  It actually, it does make it seem a little more
• 5:47
  significant than just an influencer because man.
• 5:49
  No, it does. Eyes would be rolling if you said
• 5:51
  influencer. I would say that this man was definitely
• 5:55
  not just labeled an influencer. I would have
• 5:58
  not considered someone who was an environmental
• 6:00
  activist as an influencer I don't think that
• 6:04
  does any justice to the story no and when I think
• 6:06
  of influencer I think of somebody who has a money
• 6:10
  to gain from situations and that doesn't sound
• 6:13
  like this guy that's true it sounds like in fact
• 6:16
  he had very negative repercussions to worry about
• 6:19
  from what he was doing it does yeah which is
• 6:22
  why i think that it deserves all the more spotlight
• 6:26
  here at journey to the fringe to be read as environmental
• 6:30
  activists so here we are that's our wednesday
• 6:33
  news it might not be positive news but it is
• 6:36
  news that chelsea is finally ready to highlight
• 6:39
  properly and give to you on this Wednesday. And
• 6:43
  it is not happy news, but it is news that you
• 6:46
  need to get us into this Friday that may piss
• 6:49
  us off, as I have heard. Well, we'll see. But
• 6:52
  in any event, you guys all got 48 hours. Take
• 6:55
  the footsteps of Chelsea and follow up on something
• 6:59
  that you've been neglecting for a while. There
• 7:02
  may be something more, too. Yes, I like that.
• 7:06
  that's something everybody's forgetting on something
• 7:09
  so let's get back on it anyhow we are non -judgmental
• 7:13
  bye bye