Rescheduled: FAMS Visiting Filmmakers Series: Reportero and Bernardo Ruiz on 10 April 2013, 6pm MH D023

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:30 PM EDT
Buchanan Hall, Meese Conference Room D023

The Film & Media Studies Visiting Filmmakers Series is bringing the film Reportero and director Bernardo Ruiz to George Mason University on 10 April 2013, 6pm: Meese Conference Room, Mason Hall (MH D023)

Reportero follows veteran reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for the media. In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime groups. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced?

"So much of the news coverage about the US-Mexico border was so decontextualized," says Ruiz. "It's what I call ‘vulture journalism' - bodies in the street and the decapitations and the shootouts - but there was no context. I just found it astonishing that even reputable media outlets were just doing slapdash coverage of the war next door. It continues to this day." Reportero takes up this question, of who reports what and how, exposing the effects of violence and also the tolls of covering it. 

Bernardo Ruiz will be on hand for a Q&A following the screening. The event is free and open to the public. 

 

Sponsored by Film & Media Studies, and cosponsored by African & African American Studies, Communication, Cultural Studies, Film & Video Studies, Global Interdisciplinary Programs, Global Studies Abroad, Human Rights & Global Justice Working Group, Latin American Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, and University Life.

Sponsored by Film & Media Studies.