Mexico's journalist association has adopted a new " security protocol" for Chihuahua state, including recommended measures such as body armour and helmets, in the wake of attacks on media workers by drug cartels.
The measures recommended by the State Human Rights Commission for reporters in the US border region is included in a new guide handbook, which details other safety advice such as waiting for security forces to arrive at a crime scene first, and to devise escape routes by car for when situations deteriorate.
Nine journalists have been killed or gone missing this year, and more than 30 have died since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organised crime three-and-a-half years ago, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Most recently in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua's drug cartel violence capital, a cameraman was injured on July 15 by the explosion of a car bomb that killed four people. Four reporters were abducted for days and released last week by a drug gang after they covered a protest at a prison in the northern Mexico state of Durango.
Reporters are also abandoning the profession, often after threats or bomb attacks, amid the drug-related violence, particularly near the northern border, which has left some 25,000 people dead since the end of 2006.
