Texas Tribune Reports on Border issues

Surrounded by a lot of hype, the online non-profit news start-up The Texas Tribune launched today. There is much to be said about the website's fresh approach to the news, but for the sake of this blog I will discuss the attention that the site has paid to U.S. - Mexico issues.

Perhaps the first thing I noticed on the site was the topics page. Here, you have Tribune coverage organized by topic sections. In the leader to the topics page there were three issues that jumped out at me: border cameras, immigration, and the Texas-Mexico border.

When you click on each topic you will be directed to a page that gives some history and recent developments regarding the topic. I was really impressed by the use of links in the descriptions because each link was extremely relevant and very useful in understanding the topic at hand. Underneath each description you will find a list of relevant stories written by Tribune staffers. So far there aren't many stories, but the site was just launched today and expect to see many more in the future.

I was happy to come to this site today and find that the Tribune has a devoted an area to U.S. - Mexico relations. It will be interesting to see how well the Tribune reports on the issue, and to observe how much coverage they devote to this extremely critical topic.

Global Public Policy Forum at UTEP

As the drug violence along the Texas-Mexico border continues, most seem dumbfounded as to how to address the problem. Last week, The University of Texas at El Paso hosted a bi-national drug conference to talk about the problems in order to better understand them. The conference hosted 30 speakers from both Mexico and the U.S.

An article by the San Antonio Express News quoted retired federal agent Terry Nelson as saying, “The global war on drugs is probably the greatest public policy failure of all time.” The Express article goes on to quote a California state judge, James Gray, as saying that drug crimes are one large part of why the U.S. leads the world in incarceration of their own people.



The El Paso Newspaper Tree, an online news site, pointed out in their coverage that two Obama admistation officials opted out of the conference at the last minute. “At a panel discussion organized by the El Paso Press Club on Saturday, UTEP Professor Kathy Staudt announced that President Obama’s border czar Alan Bersin and National drug control policy czar Gil Kerlikowske surprised organizers by bowing out days before the start of the conference.”

The fact that the federal officials did not show up was no surprise to El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles. “"I don't know why you're all so surprised about the federal government's unwillingness to address this because, quite frankly, they've ignored the problem for years, and that's why we're in the situation we're in now," Wiles told the Newspaper Tree.