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Congressional hearings into Mexican narcoviolence allowed NBC's George Lewis to replay the same sensational footage from TV Mexcanal that CBS' Bill Whitaker aired last month. It showed reporter Miguel Turriza caught in the crossfire on the bridge between Reynosa and McAllen in a shootout with traffickers that left ten dead. Lewis used it to illustrate the debate over US-Mexico border security: "There is a seemingly never ending supply of the contraband that fuels the drug war--narcotics from Mexico moving into the United States; money and arms from the United States moving into Mexico." The Mayor of San Diego is even suggesting that US border guards should start searching traffic leaving the country as well as that entering it.
At first glance it would seem that Lewis' colleague Mark Potter landed the plum assignment in NBC's narcocoverage, being assigned to Cancun to monitor the impact on students' spring break. Naturally, he could not resist some sexy shots of beach parties and girls gone not especially wild. To his credit, he filed a story that was serious not salacious. "There are actually two Cancuns," he explained--the tourist zone on a peninsula and, miles away, a downtown separated by Caribbean waters. Potter's story was about the other Cancun "where the drug-related violence and corruption are all present."
Mauro Tello, a retired army general, was kidnapped and murdered, his body dumped on a Quintana Roo roadside. "Dozens of Cancun police officers--including the chief--were detained for questioning," Potter told us, and a prison riot broke out when authorities interrogated inmates. He interviewed Mayor Greg Sanchez about the violence: "Cancun is safer than ever and more beautiful."
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