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“El Huaso” for Borderland Beat
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In 2022, the United States news media wrote four times as many news articles about security and cartels in Mexico than they did in 2002, an increase just about proportional to the increase in homicides in that period.
Further, there is a strong correlation of .859 between the annual homicide count in Mexico and the number of articles covering insecurity and organized crime. Basically, as violence increases, journalists write more stories about violence in Mexico.
Year Articles Percent Change
2002 4758 28.66%
2003 3161 -33.56%
2004 3547 12.21%
2005 5242 47.79%
2006 6200 18.28%
2007 6065 -2.18%
2008 7113 17.28%
2009 8398 18.07%
2010 8280 -1.41%
2011 9283 12.11%
2012 6893 -25.75%
2013 5779 -16.16%
2014 6896 19.33%
2015 8260 19.78%
2016 8776 6.25%
2017 8823 0.54%
2018 11760 33.29%
2019 12324 4.80%
2020 10452 -15.19%
2021 13503 29.19%
2022 16229 20.19%
You can follow me on Twitter @HuasoBB.
I tweet about organized crime in Latin America and security in Mexico.