According to the Chronicle, "Many Mexican reporters, particularly in the embattled border states, have stopped writing about organized crime, and, as the drug war spreads south, journalists across the country are becoming targets. On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, the decapitated body of a local drug dealer turned up outside a newspaper in the eastern port city of Veracruz. According to local press reports, the killers left this warning: 'For Milo, you'll all pay. You know it, and more heads of damned reporters are going to roll.' The threat was presumed to be directed at Milo Vera, a local columnist. 'There's total impunity,' said Jose Antonio Calcanio, president of the Federation of Mexican Journalists Associations, which represents 137 journalist groups nationwide. 'The government has no interest in resolving any of these cases,' Calcanio said. 'It's only when there's a prominent case like Amado Ramirez that they pretend to act, but then they forget, and nothing happens.' Two suspects were arrested in the days after the radio host's murder, but both were released on bail. Many of Ramirez's colleagues suspect the men were scapegoats."
The Chronicle noted that "Nearly 1,000 people have died in gangland-style killings related to drug-trafficking in the first four months of the year, compared with 2,000 in all of last year, according to Mexico City's El Universal newspaper. The southwestern state of Guerrero, home to Acapulco, has been one of the hardest hit, with some 300 gangland homicides last year. The city made headlines worldwide after several heads were dumped outside government offices last summer and another washed up on a beach. Then came a series of armed raids on local police stations, including one in which seven state officials died in February. After Ramirez's murder, the U.S. State Department updated its travel advisory for Mexico, for the first time warning of drug-gang violence in Acapulco."