WORLD PRESS FREEDOM PRIZE AWARDED

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) The Mexican journalist awarded this year's World
Press Freedom Prize today confessed that he briefly considered leaving the
profession.

Jesus Blancornelas, chief editor and co-founder of the Tijuana weekly
newspaper Zeta, was lying in a hospital bed. He'd barely survived a Nov. 27,
1997, assassination attempt, taking four bullets in a revenge attack for his
investigations into the drug underworld.

He thought about his family, the danger his job put them in. Then he thought
again.

"If I quit I'll be considered a coward. What's more, the mafias would make
me an example for other journalists, telling them, `See what happened to
him, worse could happen to you.' That's why I decided to continue,"
Blancornelas told a crowd gathered to commemorate World Press Freedom Day.

Blancornelas, 63, has not let up in his investigations of Mexico's drug
gangs and the politicians they buy off, even though he said two $80,000
bounties have been placed on his head.

He rarely goes out, shuttling almost exclusively between his office and home
in the city on the U.S. border, and is guarded round-the-clock by 10 soldiers.

"I'm in a hurry to write. I'm in a hurry to publish, knowing that I'm living
on borrowed time," Blancornelas said in recounting the chilling story of his
survival. "Just like Guillermo Cano, I should be dead."

Blancornelas never met Cano, but he dedicated the award to the crusading
publisher and editor of the Bogota newspaper El Espectador. Cano was slain by

Medellin cocaine cartel gunmen in 1986.

The $25,000 prize received by Blancornelas is named after Cano and was
presented by the slain Colombian's widow, Ana Maria, and UNESCO Secretary-
General Federico Mayor at the opening of a two-day conference on worldwide
threats to journalistic freedom.

The U.N. educational and cultural agency and the Colombian foundation
created in Cano's memory sponsored both the conference and award.

The 1998 prize winner, Christina Anyanwu of Nigeria, was also on hand. She
couldn't collect her award last year because she wasn't released from jail
until June.

"All over the world, media practitioners are arrested, detained, imprisoned
and murdered," said Anyanwu, who was imprisoned for three years for writing
about an impending coup in the now-defunct Sunday Magazine, which she edited.

"The trend is on the upsurge, and it is deeply troubling because it's not
just happening in theaters of war and military dictatorships. More and more
we are beginning to see this happen in a democratic environment."

Nearly 500 journalists were killed worldwide over the last decade for daring
to dig into issues such as official corruption, drug trafficking, and
environmental scandals, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists. The vast majority of the killers have evaded justice.

That's why Argentine journalist Jorge Fascetto, president of the
Inter-American Press Association, said his group was studying the creation
of a "rapid-reaction force" of reporters to investigate the murders of
journalists across the Americas.

Blancornelas also said a big threat to journalism today is that too many
news media are being bought by businessmen whose interests may not coincide
with the truth.

"I believe the media should be in the hands of journalists. We have no
reason to censor ourselves," he told The Associated Press, adding that he
considered just 10 of Mexico's roughly 300 newspapers to be "truly independent."