User:Georgeblake/Project

Borderland Beat is a prominent English language narco blog which is considered a leading source for news on the Mexican Drug War. The blog was started in April 2009 by a single person who maintains his anonymity behind the screen name Buggs, and he remains the sole owner. It has been referred to and quoted in the New York Times, Small Wars Journal and the Houston Chronicle.

In an article published in May, 2012, the journalist, Gary Moore, described Borderland Beat as follows: "An English-language digest Web site called Borderland Beat forms a lonely watchtower on the Mexico battlements, manned by a small cadre of Mexican-Americans (my work has appeared there as well), who set themselves the vital mission of archiving any available news on Mexico’s meltdown."

This Der Spiegel article includes a description of the main features of the Borderland Beat website.

On average, there are between 3 and 4 news stories posted each day. As well as the news pages, there is a self-contained open forum which runs in parallel to the main news pages, where anyone can post once they have registered.

Editorial control is overseen by three site administrators who also write for the news pages, together with a number of recognized contributors. In addition to recognized contributions, news stories are continually appearing on the open forum, where most remain; a few do get promoted to the news pages if they are deemed sufficiently interesting and factual by an administrator.

As of October 2012 the blog has had over 27 million visits since the introduction of a stats counter in December 2009.

Danger to bloggers reporting Cartel violence
After the discovery in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on November 09, 2011 of the body of the fourth blogger to be killed in the space of a month, for posting online information about drug cartels, The Daily Dot, MSNBC and Der Spiegel each produced an article outlining the dangers such internet activity posed. For comment, The Daily Dot and MSNBC turned to Borderland Beat administrator "Overmex", while Der Spiegel interviewed Borderland Beat contributor "Gerardo". In all the interviews the two bloggers reiterated their determination to continue reporting on the ongoing drug war, and not to be intimidated by the drug cartels threats and actions.

Quoting from an article in Bloomberg Businessweek: "To protect contributors, the editors of the blog Borderland Beat, which has a reputation as one of the most reliable sources of information on Mexico’s drug violence, say even they don’t know the identity of some of the site’s major contributors. Posts are often passed through intermediaries to protect secrecy. “They could be journalists, cops, politicians, maybe even cartel members themselves,” says one of the blog’s editors, who uses the nickname Buggs."

Trusted source
Borderland Beat has been used as a reference in academic papers submitted under the auspices of:

Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

Naval War College, Newport, R.I.

US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania

Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, Independence Ave, SE Washington, DC

San Diego State University, Campanile Drive, San Diego, California

University of California, San Diego, Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California

George Washington University, Eye Street, NW Washington, DC

Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW Washington D.C.

Colgate University, Hamilton, New York

Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana, Medellín, Colombia

Ghent University, Ghent, Flanders, Belgium

Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

Center for a New American Security, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC

Colgen LP, Defense Consulting Services, Mico, Texas

Dr. Robert Bunker regularly writes about the Mexican Drug War for Small Wars Journal, and frequently refers to Borderland Beat for material. His May 31, 2012 blog post "Mexican Cartel Tactical Note #12" quotes extensively from a Borderland Beat news story.

Wikipedia frequently refers to Borderland Beat for source material on various subjects to do with the Mexican Drug War.