POX ON `PARACHUTE JOURNALISTS' INVADING TEXAS BORDER

EL PASO -- I was inside the Washington, D.C., Beltway on Nov. 29, when CBS
News broke the story, planted by the FBI, that as many as 200 bodies of
murder victims were buried at a ranch near Ciudad Juarez, across the
U.S-Mexico border from El Paso.

U.S. newspapers and broadcast media jumped onto the report instantly,
claiming that investigators from both countries were digging for "hundreds
of bodies." They pinned the supposed murders on "the Juarez drug cartel."
Using the analogy of the genocide committed by communist dictator Pol Pot
in Cambodia, several news reports chose to describe the border region as
"the killing fields."

After getting over my initial shock, I felt anger toward the media. Yet
another under-researched, overly sensational story about drugs and crime
along the U.S.-Mexico border was plastered on Page 1 and prime-time news
across the United States.

The journalist in me recognizes that the story deserves air time and press
play, but as a recent border resident, I have quickly become sensitive to
the too-common media portrayal of the border as a southwestern Miami Vice,
without the glamour.

When I returned to El Paso a few days later, the local newspapers were
reporting that Mexican and U.S. federal and state authorities had unearthed
eight bodies at two sites at the ranch. Although police continue digging
for more victims, at this juncture the talk of "hundreds of bodies" appears
to be vastly exaggerated.

I share the outrage of my friends on both sides of the border when they
denounce the sudden appearance here of dozens of outside journalists who,
with little if any knowledge of the border region, offer their "expert
analysis" of the situation.

"They drop in, fly out, and we have to clean up," said a colleague, a
political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, where I
teach. Around here we call them "parachute journalists," a term I first
heard applied to high-profile TV news personalities who fly to world-news
hot spots for a day or two to use the visual backdrops to validate their
expertise.

Another colleague, a sociologist, related her conversation with a Scottish
journalist who asked whom he could interview about the dozens of young
women who have been murdered in the area over the last few years (another
story popular with the U.S. and world press). My friend mentioned a woman
from Juarez who is well versed on the matter.

"Of course, she only speaks Spanish, so you will have to have an
interpreter," my friend explained to him.

"I don't have time," he responded. "I've got to catch a flight in a few
hours."

Something tells me he didn't pursue the interview. The perpetual black eye
this area receives from outside media coverage that focuses almost
exclusively on drugs, crime and illegal immigrants jangles the nerves of
border residents.

In an usual move, Juarez Mayor Gustavo Elizondo launched a public relations
campaign, taking out a nearly full-page ad in The Washington Post this
month to defend the city from the negative images. The pricey ad, which
cost in the neighborhood of $30,000-$40,000, decried the media's "false,
derogatory and unjust" depiction of Juarez and the border. The mayor also
made a point of meeting with journalists in Juarez and traveling to Mexico
City to set the record straight.

From a border vantage point, the media assault is a personal affront.

"This was a display of force to restore the dignity of our city," explained
Javier De Anda, Ciudad Juarez's commerce secretary. "Few people realize
that a television set is produced in Juarez every three seconds or that a
computer is produced in Juarez every five seconds; that the unemployment
rate here is less than 1 percent, and that there are a number of growing
high-tech facilities in Juarez."

De Anda is right. There's so much more to the border region than meets the
eye. Fueled by the North American Free Trade Agreement and continued
population growth, the area is becoming a transnational economic powerhouse
with a vibrant and unique culture that blends aspects of the indigenous,
the Mexican, the Southwest and many other traditions.

And if the press wants to stay focused on the negatives, there's plenty of
other material: lack of housing and adequate roads, access to health care,
and a dwindling water supply, to name a few concerns. It's not just about
drugs, guns and immigration.

Hooray for Juarez, I say. Hooray for the border and the mayor! It's about
time the folks who live here define who they are and begin shaping how the
outside world perceives us border-landers.