The inherent dangers of choosing journalism as a career in Mexico have prompted parents to withdraw their children from a periodismo course in the southern Jalisco city of Ciudad Guzman, reports Guadalajara daily Maspormas.
In a region troubled by intense drug trafficking activity, few young people seem interested in embarking on such a hazardous career.
According to Maspormas, 15 places have yet to be filled in the upcoming year’s journalism degree course offered at the Universidad de Guadalajara’s Centro Universitario del Sur.
“The professionalization and ethics of journalism bring their pressures,” course director Rosa Eugenia García Gómez told the newspaper. “Officials have complained to us that we are teaching our students to ask uncomfortable questions.
“If we don’t train journalists in our region we will become a zone of silence,” she said.
Maspormas pointed out that more and more qualified Mexican journalists are leaving a profession that offers scant security and financial reward.
Three of the five journalists honored in the 2015 Premio Jalisco de Periodismo 2015 have left their jobs, Maspormas said.