Finding the News

by Peter Copeland

  “Have you seen Proceso?” he asked, referring to the influential weekly news magazine.

  “No,” I said, “It just came out today and I haven’t read it yet. What’s in it?”

  “You should see it.”

  “Why? What’s in it?”

  “And after all I did for you,” he said. He pushed his food around his plate like a child refusing to eat. He hadn’t taken a bite.

  “What? What does it say?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “Excuse me, Pepe,” I said, standing up and putting aside my napkin. I walked to the newsstand outside the door, bought the magazine and quickly realized why he was so mad. There was nothing more disturbing than seeing my own name under an inflammatory headline. Then I saw the word “propagandist” and a few other insults. There were damning quotes from me that I never said. Not good.

  “You know I didn’t say that stuff,” I told Pepe.

  The story was about a PBS Frontline documentary called “Standoff in Mexico” that exposed election fraud in northern Mexico. The producer, Hector Galán, had filmed me during 1985 while I covered the elections, and then allowed me to help write and edit the film. The documentary did not air on Mexican television, but I knew bootleg copies had circulated because Mexicans stopped me on the street and said, “Hey, you’re the kid in that movie!”

  The news magazine called the documentary an unfair and biased attack on Mexico by “the US government’s official television network.”

  Pepe was especially mad because he had vouched for me to arrange interviews for the film.

  “This is messed up, Pepe. I did work on this film, but I didn’t say those things, and I’m not a propagandist for anybody. You know that.”

  “Well that’s what I told the big guys when they called me to find out what the hell was going on,” he said in Spanish. His voice was getting louder and his speech more slurred.

  “After all I did for you,” he growled. Now he was almost shouting, but I heard in his voice more hurt than anger. People at other tables stopped eating to stare at us. You could hear the random clink of a fork on a plate as the crowded restaurant suddenly went quiet. “After all I did for you,” he cried plaintively, “and you fuck us in the ass.”

  To repair the damage, Pepe had invited three senior leaders of the ruling party to join us for coffee after lunch. The party was divided into young technocrats who wanted to “modernize” the country and the old guard, known as dinosaurs, who preferred smoke-filled backrooms and elections with predetermined outcomes. Pepe was a proud dinosaur, and he described the three men coming to meet me as even more conservative. These guys, he said, were not just dinosaurs but “woolly mammoths.”

  When the mammoths arrived, we stood to greet them. Pepe had sobered up a little, but he was nervous and spent a long time on the ritual handshakes and backslaps, larded with effusive praise for the political brilliance of his three great friends. The men had good suits and haircuts. They were polite and quietly powerful.

  When everyone had settled in, Pepe whispered to me out of the side of his mouth, “Let me do the talking.” After praising the mammoths some more, he tried to build me up, stressing my experience, my love of Mexico, even my beautiful Mexican girlfriend. Too late, though; they already had seen the magazine story about me.

  The mammoths began a philosophical discussion about democracy, while Pepe switched from rum and Coke to brandy. Mexican officials loved to speak about “guided” democracy or “controlled” democracy. My favorite protest sign called for a “democracy without adjectives.” The mammoths thought I was naïve to believe the United States was a true democracy while Mexico was not. Each country had a native form of government and citizen participation that suited its historical reality, they argued. One system was not better or worse than the other.

  They smirked at the idea that the United States even was a democracy at all; they considered it a plutocracy ruled by an elite divided into two parties. The wealthy prospered no matter which party was in power. Their views weren’t all that different from my own views in college, but now I heard myself defending the United States like a love-it-or-leave-it patriot.

  The lunch was civil, though; the Mexicans had exquisite manners. I was a guest in their country, even if I wasn’t as appreciative as I could be. I didn’t convince the mammoths of anything, but they showed me the courtesy of opening up and speaking honestly about their country. Instead of ignoring me, or telling me to go to hell, they engaged me. That’s all I ever wanted as a reporter.

  I walked home with my thoughts racing because they had given me a peek inside the system, and it was different from how I had imagined. I believed Mexico was more ready for democracy than they did, but they were not evil dictators. They gave me a more nuanced view of Mexico’s political future than I had considered. Seeing something in a new way, for the first time, was exhilarating.

  Not everyone was so generous. The Proceso story kept causing me problems. Most people hadn’t seen the documentary itself, which was tough but fair; they only had seen the story about me in the magazine, which was tough and unfair. I needed to correct the record, but it made me uncomfortable, and I wasn’t sure how to fight back, or even whether I should.

  It was a good lesson to be written about because it made me more sensitive to the value (and difficulty) of responsible journalism. After being burned in print, I would be more careful about how I portrayed people. Another reason for my reluctance to speak up was the unwritten rule against publicly criticizing another reporter’s work. I didn’t feel comfortable taking on a colleague, but this story had the feel of something contrived to damage me and to discredit the documentary. This was fake news with an agenda. And it hurt my feelings.

  Reluctantly, I asked for an appointment with the magazine’s founder and editor, Julio Scherer, a pioneering and respected journalist. He was my father’s age, calm and soft-spoken. I brought him a transcript of what I had said in the film and compared it to the magazine’s version, which was entirely invented. He apologized, genuinely. He probably was surprised and disappointed about the erroneous story in his own magazine, but he did not share his feelings with me. I was too nervous, and it felt like it was none of my business, to ask what he would say to the reporter. He did not offer to correct the story, but he asked me to write a formal letter explaining what had happened, which he published verbatim in the next issue.

  I went back and forth about whether I enjoyed the attention from the documentary and the public exposure. I got a thrill from every byline of my own, but I did not enjoy being the target of someone else’s story. The difference was feeling the power of writing a story versus the powerlessness of being in one. At a gut level, it was the difference between chasing someone and being chased. Also, while being on TV was a rush, I hadn’t fully appreciated the freedom of anonymity, until I lost it.

  My new celebrity status came up awkwardly during a routine news conference. Mexican and foreign reporters were summoned to be briefed about the Mexican government’s response to a series of violent street protests. A senior official played video of people throwing rocks and bottles at the riot police. The police showed remarkable restraint, at least in the video chosen by the government.

  Then the briefer pointed to the group of masked people holding rocks and sticks and said, “These guys here? These are friends of Peter Copeland.” Everyone laughed. I felt a hot flush climb up my neck.

  I wasn’t going to pull back. That same week I was thrown out of the US embassy because of a story the American ambassador didn’t like. The desk in Washington said if I had upset the Mexicans and the Americans, I was doing a good job. Nobody considered that maybe I was doing a bad job and was unfair to both sides. I didn’t think so. I just wanted to show people back home what Mexico was really like, the beautiful and the ugly.

  I loved Mexico, although the poverty and injustice could not be ignored, and daily life for everyone was frustrating because of bureaucratic inefficiency and the arbitra
riness of power. I definitely was a harsh judge of Mexico’s government, but after the violence and criminality I had seen in Central America, Mexico felt like Switzerland. Still, corruption and malfeasance were overwhelming and stifling forces in Mexican life, and therefore inevitable topics for my stories.

  One kind of corruption Mexicans experienced every day was from the police, so that was an obvious story. After City News, I considered myself an expert on covering cops, but to write about the Mexican police, I needed a way in or a hook. Riding along in a patrol car was a routine reporting technique at home, but when I suggested it to a Mexican official, he was flummoxed. Ride in a patrol car? Didn’t I want to interview the chief of police?

  Surprisingly, I got the ride-along with Mexico City’s finest. They assigned me to a shift that lasted all night, which was perfect. I was introduced to the two officers who were my hosts, and they led me to a squad car. I got in the back, and they sat in front.

  “Where would you like to go?” asked the officer at the wheel, looking at me in the rear-view mirror through a protective screen across the top of the back seat.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “I just wanted to see things from the police point of view. I’ve been in Mexico for awhile, and I know the police have a public relations problem. There are always two sides to a story, though, and I figured I should see what it’s like. I suspect the relationship between the police and the public is more complicated than people think.”

  The driver looked back at me again. “That’s right,” he said.

  “I don’t know how you guys do it,” I said. “You risk your lives every day and what do you get? Low pay and no respect.”

  “That’s right,” the driver said.

  There were long silences as we cruised around the city. I watched as drivers noticed the police car and then averted their eyes. You could practically hear them praying, Please don’t pull me over.

  “How long have you guys been on the force?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

  “Twenty-seven years,” the driver replied. He nodded to his partner. “The lieutenant here has been a policeman for twenty-three years.”

  “Do you have a regular beat?”

  They both laughed. “I haven’t had a beat in ten years,” the driver said. “I’m the captain in charge of all the squad cars in this area. It’s an administrative position.”

  Despite my request for a typical patrol car, the brass had given me two veterans with supervisory jobs. I was a little disappointed because they were less likely to be candid. The good thing was they could speak about the bigger issues from more than their own personal experience.

  The captain pulled over to the curb, where a young female officer was talking and laughing with a young man on the sidewalk. The officer waved at the patrol car, did a double take when she saw who was driving, and saluted.

  “Come here, darlin,’” the captain said, leaning out the window and patting the side of the patrol car like it was his horse. She walked over, her eyes on the ground. The older man asked her, “Are you writing parking tickets or flirting?”

  “Writing tickets, captain.”

  “That’s my girl. Sharp eye, darlin.’ Sharp eye.”

  After two hours of the officers responding only “that’s right” to my questions, we stopped to stretch our legs. I bought soft drinks, and we stood near the patrol car watching the traffic. I was afraid the ride was going to end without anything for my story, so I changed tactics. My Spanish was good now, but I dropped the exaggerated formality and went for American directness. I loved the Mexican expression for speaking frankly: sin pelos en la lengua, literally “without hair on the tongue.”

  “You know,” I said, deploying my favorite expression about being blunt, “I have a problem with the police. They try to get too much money from me because they think I’m a rich gringo.”

  The captain and the lieutenant were leaning up against the patrol car, sipping their sodas. This could go either way: They could feel insulted and not talk to me, or they could open up. The two officers looked at each other and the lieutenant asked, “So what happens?”

  “Usually I’ve done something wrong, I admit it. Maybe an illegal turn or running a stop sign, double-parking. The officer says it is a serious infraction. I say surely we can arrange something. He says how much. I say five dollars, and he wants ten.”

  “The first thing is, never tell them a price,” the lieutenant said. “They’re trying to figure out your bottom limit, and they will always ask for more. And don’t offer them money. Just pull out a few pesos, take their hand and say, ‘Here’s a little something to buy flowers for your wife,’ or, ‘I’d like to treat you to a nice necktie.’ Don’t argue about prices; just give it to them.”

  The captain joined in now, warming to the topic. “People say it’s a payoff or corruption. Look. Say a guy goes through a red light. If I give him a ticket, we both are going to lose a lot of time at the station. If I just give him a warning, then the next time something happens, he’s going to remember the police. Say there’s a robbery and this guy sees it happen. We’ve got a witness. He’s going to cooperate with the police because we’ve cooperated with him.

  “If he offers me a little something,” the captain said, “That’s not corruption. That’s good public relations.”

  The sun was coming up by the time they dropped me back at the station. I had learned a lot, and we had a few laughs. I was looking forward to writing my story. I already had decided not to use their names. No one had told me not to identify them, but I didn’t want to hurt their careers, even if my story would not appear in Mexico. They had been honest with me, so I wanted to protect them. The story was much bigger than those two officers, anyway, and I already had interviewed legal experts and victims of police corruption.

  A few days later I stopped short when I saw the headline on the front page of Mexico’s English-language paper, The News. There was my police story with my byline and a photo. I had wrongly assumed no one in Mexico would ever see my story. Once in awhile, the Mexican press printed a critical story from the US media. That way they could publish something negative about Mexico and blame the foreigners. No one in Mexico would have been shocked by my “revelations” about police corruption, but it didn’t look good on the front page of the local paper. I was sure the police would be mad. Just to be safe, I left my car in the garage for a few days and used taxis.

  This was one of the times I benefited from being in Mexico but not of Mexico. A Mexican reporter had to be careful writing about the police or government corruption. There could be serious repercussions for his or her career and personal safety. I felt safe. If I wrote tough stories, I was rewarded by my employer, and I did not fear reprisals. It was only later, after I upset the wrong people, that my life would be threatened.

  The most dangerous stories I covered were not about government corruption in Mexico or wars in Central America, but international drug trafficking. Covering an armed conflict, I always felt some protection being a journalist and an American. The lines were blurrier when covering the “drug war.” Which side were we Americans on, anyway? The United States led the global fight against drug trafficking, but we also led in drug consumption. And since the traffickers got their way using bribery and terror (“silver or lead,” in Spanish), it was dangerous to trust anyone.

  The danger I faced, though, was nothing compared to what Mexican reporters risked. If their editors allowed them to write about drug trafficking, which was rare, few reporters took the chance because of the peril to their families and themselves. This wasn’t a question of personal courage; they had no protection at all. Mexican reporters were knowledgeable about trafficking, however, and they wanted the information to be published. That’s where I was valuable to them.

  I made friends with journalists around the country. One of them, whom I will call Victor to protect him, was totally wired into the drug trade in his home state of Sinaloa, the crime capital
of Mexico. I met him through Maru, and therefore he trusted me completely, meaning with his life.

  We usually talked in his pickup truck, which was the safest location for him. He drove me around on a trafficking tour: there’s the house of a narco, there’s his disco and restaurant. That warehouse was used for storage of guns, drugs, and money. This is the home of a politician who takes money to look the other way.

  I asked if Victor had written any of this. “Are you nuts?” he said, laughing and swerving around corners so hard that I slid across the seat.

  He introduced me to four friends, who worked for the state and local government, and we sat on folding chairs formed into a circle in a big, abandoned industrial building. It was hot, and there was beer. Someone lit up a joint of the local cash crop, and then another and another. The conversation—as it always did when an American journalist was present—turned to politics.

  The guys who worked for the government were supporters of the ruling party, both for ideological reasons and patronage. I told them I understood a one-party system because I had covered Chicago, which got a laugh. “If it weren’t for the ruling party, the gringos would have taken over Mexico by now,” said one of the men, adding to me: “No offense intended, but all the gringos have ever done is fuck us over.” Another said, “We’d be better off with the Russians as bosses.”

  When we started talking about journalism, Victor asked me, “Do you ever take money from your beat here?”

  All eyes turned to me. I laughed. In Mexico, there was a whole vocabulary around paying off reporters, including the Spanish word sobre or “envelope,” which came stuffed with money. “They know better than to offer us envelopes,” I said, “because we’d write about it and cause a scandal.” I’m not sure they believed me. I didn’t ask the same question of Victor because I didn’t want to know the answer.

  A baby owl appeared out of nowhere and walked into the circle. The guys applauded and greeted the owl with friendly clucking noises. The chubby bird walked clumsily as a toddler, turning its head this way and that. Since I was the guest of honor, someone picked up the owlet and set it on my lap. I tried to pet it, but it bit my finger. Then it turned its head almost completely around and peed on me. The smoke was thick and skunky, and my hosts were getting more upset about Yanqui imperialism, present company excluded. The owl dug its talons into my thighs, popping the fabric on my pants.