IT'S OUR JOB TO GO TO JUAREZ TO COVER NEWS

A Dallas television station was in our newsroom on Friday talking to
reporters about why we venture into Juarez to report on El Paso's sister city.

My take was this:

"Are you afraid to cross into Juarez to report?"

"No."

"Why do you do it?"

"Well, because we're journalists and reporting on significant stories
concerning the border is what we do."

A student from Georgetown University e-mailed similar questions this
week for a paper he is writing. One of his was:

"Have you debated on whether or not you should print content
regarding the drug war?"

"No, there is no debate. We cover Juarez and Mexico, and that's just
what we do. We would be shirking our responsibilities if we didn't
report on the drug war next door, and the integrity of our work as a
newsroom would be compromised if we didn't report on something
because we were influenced or afraid of what might happen to us."

We do preach safety to our reporters, and we have procedures in place
to ensure communication when we have journalists working in Mexico.

The reporters we send also have the proper visas to work in Mexico
and to cross back and forth between countries. Myself, I have a visa
issued by Mexico that allows me to work in that country. I cross into
Juarez because it helps me keep a sense of how things are. I get a
better feel for a situation when I experience it up close rather than
sitting in an office, even if that office is just a few miles away.

We are not the only American or foreign journalists working in
Mexico. As the violence in Mexico has escalated over the past two
years, many U.S. news organizations have dispatched journalists to
report out of that country. The BBC also has had a steady presence
throughout. The Associated Press has been doing outstanding work from
Mexico. So has McClatchy, the Washington Post, the New York Times,
the Wall Street Journal and on and on.

We feel like the El Paso Times is the most authoritative voice on the
Juarez situation. We're there every week. We report on Juarez -- the
good and the bad -- in some fashion, every day.

One of our journalists just spent three weeks in Juarez, reporting
stories and collecting information for future stories. We had another
reporter in Juarez earlier in the week to visit with the Rev. James
Hinde, whose story you can find on today's front page.

When the cockroaches killed 6-year-old Eileen Armendariz of Canutillo
while she was visiting her father in Juarez, who also was killed, we
laid out the facts as we knew them.

When the townspeople of Ascension rose up and took matters into their
own hands, we went to that community on the Mexico-New Mexico border
to learn more.

We toured maquiladora factories earlier in the week and you can see
photographs from that tour in today's newspaper.

We will continue to venture into Juarez and continue our proactive
reporting on the situation in Mexico. It's another story and it's what we do.