How has the Ecuadorian press covered the northern border? An ethnography of 2018-2019 with a gender focus

Abstract

This paper analyzes the media coverage that transnational crime has had in the northern part of Ecuador. The media have shifted journalists, mostly men, to the border since the 1990s. Most of the coverage is related to murders, smuggling and drug trafficking. The study includes media monitoring, accompanied by in-depth interviews with journalists who covered the conflict zone, and a participant observation in national written press media. Although in the last decade the media monitoring towards the border decreased, in 2017 it resumed strongly due to the fight that then the Ecuadorian State undertook against drug trafficking. The murder of the newspaper team of El Comercio newspaper in march 2018 halted the intervention of the media in the area since then. Many were lacking protocols, life insurance, security manuals, and budget to send their journalists to cover the ecuadorian border.