I wrote the following entry last Sunday, November 9, but just now finished editing it:

This morning, as on every Sunday morning, I heard the deep voice of the newspaper vendor calling loudly in the street, “Diario! Diario!” Only it sounded like this, rendered in monotone: "Deee-Ahhh-riO! Deee-Ahhh-riO!"

In Xalapa, there are no self-serve newspaper stands where one can pick up a paper, nor can newspapers be bought at the 7-11 stores (called miscellaneas here) that dot nearly every block. Newspapers are sold at manned—or womaned—newspaper-and-magazine stands around the city, but there are none close to where I live.

During the week, I buy a newspaper or two—the Diario de Xalapa and the A-Z—at a stand near the school. On Sundays, I often buy one from the street vendor when his path and mine collide.

But this morning I heard his call at the ungodly hour of 9:15. I’d only been up for 15 minutes, was still in my pajamas, and had had only a few sips of coffee, so I wasn’t in any shape to run down the stairs and chase after him to buy a paper.

It doesn’t really matter though: I have yesterday’s paper that I’ve barely touched. Reading in Spanish takes me a long time, but day by day, poco a poco, I’m reading faster and having to look up fewer words.

And I have to say I’m impressed by the frankness of many of the editorials and articles I’ve been reading related to the politics and political figures here in Mexico. Some journalists don’t pull any punches in pointing out corruption and unseemly behavior on the parts of politicians.

For example, headlines in the national section of the A-Z for Nov. 9 pointed out that “Secretarios atienden emergencia entre lujos” (Secretaries [of governmental departments] attend to emergency in luxury). The accompanying article showed photos of two high-level federal government officials who had traveled to the state capital of Tabasco to help bring aid to the flooded state while they themselves stayed at five-star hotels, enjoying canapés, wine and other luxuries, which the article went into great detail in describing. Meanwhile, it was pointed out that many of the flood victims were suffering without water or food.

Another editorial blamed the governors of Tabasco and Chiapas, the two states suffering from the recent flooding, for not having used funds available to them before the fact to have prevented the flooding in the first place. (The flooding in Villahermosa, the capital of the state of Tabasco, has been compared to the flooding in New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina.)

So I was startled to read a recent report by the French-based nonprofit organization Reporters Without Borders that said in 2006 Mexico was the second-most-dangerous country in which to be a journalist, after Iraq, based on the fact that nine journalists had been murdered and three disappeared here last year. But the report says the danger to journalists comes not from a repressive government but from drug cartels that don’t want their activities brought to light by the media.