In search of protection, justice and the truth: journalists’ responses to impunity in Mexico and Honduras

This dissertation offers a qualitative, comparative, bottom-up exploration of journalists’ responses to impunity for violence against journalists in two Latin American countries where this problem is particularly egregious, Mexico and Honduras. It provides a critique of international relations and politics debates on the value of international human rights (IHR) law and norms to local civil society groups and actors. Drawing on scholarship on civil society and coping strategies in violent/ repressive contexts, it asks what people do when state and international protection and the domestic civil society “enforcement mechanism” for IHR standards fail.

Via thematic analysis of 67 interviews with journalists and protection actors, I show that journalists used several interlinked strategies to seek justice and protection: domestic and international (engaging with the state via intermediaries – “protection approaches”), and activist and professional (“self-protection approaches”). Journalists rarely mobilised around IHR standards or legal rights, instead depending on (I)NGOs. While protection approaches were necessary and valued, they were usually insufficient to achieve security and justice: context-dependent and limited – particularly in terms of addressing impunity – and frequently risky for journalists.

Hence, journalists often supplemented/replaced protection with self-protection approaches. But certain self-protection practices could actually undermine journalists’ security, as well as journalism itself and public perceptions of the profession, including some grassroots forms of activism, self-censorship and co-optation. Consequently, some journalists were developing broader self-protection strategies to transform the profession and practice of journalism. These strategies went beyond immediate physical security, combining protection and professionalisation to improve journalists’ work as well as continue it more safely, and building their credibility and public support. This indicates the significance of the norms of professional journalism over IHR norms in this case. Although no substitute for effective state protection, such professional strategies were a crucial complement, with potential to make important contributions to societal pressure for justice and state protection.