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79 4 Dealing with Everyday Violence the JourNalist aNd the PaiNter Javier valdez cárdenas: the Journalist In the time it took to write this chapter, the death of more than twenty journalists were reported in Mexico. On September 20, 2010, after the shooting of photographer Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, the Diario de Juárez published a controversial editorial in which they asked the narcos for an explanation for their use of violence (“El Diario de Juárez pide tregua a narcotraficantes,” 21). The editorial is both a recognition of the narcos’ hegemonic power in the city as well as an acknowledgment of the lack of government action. Journalists are among the many professionals who stand in the crossfire between the authorities and the narcos; they are the ones who have to decipher to which side do local politicians, state officials, civil servants, and others belong. They occupy a vulnerable position in a war in which the ostensible use of dead bodies as personal messages has become a trend. This chapter explores the work of Javier Valdez Cárdenas, a journalist who reports on the way in which daily life is defined by narco traffickers. The end of the chapter explores the shapes and colors this daily life has acquired in the works of the culichi painter Lenin Márquez. When I met Javier Valdez Cárdenas in January 2007, we had breakfast at the San Marcos Hotel in downtown Culiacán. While we ate, Valdez Cárdenas spoke about his aspirations of having his work published in a book. He had sent his chronicles to editors in Mexico City and had not heard from them in over a year. He was frustrated: not only had his book not been published, the editors had not given him any feedback on his texts. I saw Valdez Cárdenas again in October 2009, during a workshop organized by the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano.1 Since our last meeting, many things had changed for Valdez Cárdenas. After almost three years, he was about to publish his book Malayerba: Crónicas del narco, with a prologue by Carlos Monsiváis, and to partici- 80 DealInG WIth eVerYDaY VIolenCe pate in a book launch at the Guadalajara book fair the following month. He was also planning to publish Miss Narco, a book about the role of women in illegal drug trafficking. Valdez Cárdenas’s joy, however, was overshadowed by the painful burden of reporting the war in Culiacán.2 I’ve analyzed approximately eighty Malayerba chronicles by Valdez Cárdenas published since current Mexican president Felipe Calderón decided to declare his war on the narcos in December 2006. My experience at the workshop in Mexico City dramatically changed my perception of the work of reporters who plumb the depths of political power and illegal drug trafficking. It also gave me perspective on Valdez Cárdenas’s work. Almost every journalist—those living in Mexico were more explicit—complained about the solitary suffering demanded by their profession. Many live between the pressure of their editors and a reality that demands to be described in a new language, one that challenges literary genres. Riodoce Javier Valdez Cárdenas told me the following in Culiacán in 2007: We were working for Noroeste, a local paper that began in Culiacán that has the second highest circulation. But there were differences in terms of the editorial line, so we decided to resign. We talked about the possibility of starting another local paper, a magazine or weekly, that would do investigative journalism . This was in September 2002, and in February of the following year, the first issue of Riodoce was published. We chose that name (“twelve rivers”) because in Sinaloa there are eleven rivers, and we are the twelfth, perhaps a brook, a trickle of water and life and change. We print about seven thousand copies weekly, which practically sell out. The four of us—Ismael Bojórquez, who was the news editor of Noroeste and is now the director of Riodoce; Alejandro Sicairos; Cayetano Osuna; and I are the founding partners and own the majority of shares. But the shareholders include people from all the political parties, others with no affiliation, friends, family, intellectuals, and so on. At the beginning, we didn’t pay ourselves a salary. The first time I received anything from Riodoce it was five hundred pesos, when we were approaching the end of our first year. The state government...

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