'If We Publish It, We Die.'

We like to think that, in America, the press is free to put out true stories without fear of reprisal. And for the most part it is – though not always, as Boston Phoenix editor Peter Kadzis acknowledged in explaining that one of the reasons his paper did not run the Prophet Muhammad cartoons was "[o]ut of concern for the safety of the people who work in this building." Still, after reading this San Antonio Express-News story by Mariano Castillo, it's hard not to think we don't fully appreciate how good we have it.

In violent Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, two state police officers were killed in what Castillo calls "the deadliest shootout in recent memory." There were five killings there in total on Thursday, all likely related to drug trafficking. But most local newspapers barely gave the story any play, opting to print brief, anonymous stories of less than 200 words.

There's a simple reason why, according to one local editor: "If we publish it, we die." He continued: "The bottom line is that we have to protect the safety of all our reporters and their families."

The papers have gotten a number of threatening phone calls over the last two years, and editors have decided that putting out the story isn't worth dying for. "The reality is that we're in a situation where there is no freedom to publish," said one.

The decision to at least run the story was a small stand against the threats, but Castillo says that for most editors "publishing the story felt less like an act of defiance and more like a retreat from the journalistic standards they want to give their readers" because it got such limited exposure.

Perhaps. But one has to give the Mexican papers some credit for at least getting the word out there in some small way. Yesterday, I wrote about a South Dakota newspaper that chose not to run an editorial about the state's controversial abortion ban for despite the fact that there is plenty of reason to editorialize on the issue. In light of the story out of Nuevo Laredo, where brave editors are wrestling with life and death issues and doing the best they can, the Argus Leader's timid stance looks that much worse.