North America
| Author | Paul Knox |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200606100307 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Paul Knox
North America
The news about the news
| International Journal | Summer 2006 | 633 |
On 19 September 1985, Mexico City was devastated by an earthquake meas-
uring 8.1 on the Richter scale that claimed more than 10,000 lives. I had
arrived in the capital two days earlier with my family to begin work as Latin
America correspondent for
The Globe and Mail.
Instead of the day of logis-
tics and paperwork I had planned, I set out in search of stories among the
rubble-strewn streets of a city I barely knew. There was no shortage of heart-
rending tales of death and survival, but sending them back to Canada was
another thing altogether. The quake had toppled Mexico’s main telecom-
munications tower, knocking out international long-distance telephone
service and all but severing communications with the world’s largest
metropolis.
One television station, tiny Channel 13, stayed on the air. Its transmis-
sions were picked up through a satellite link by a radio station in Bogota,
Colombia, and information was relayed by news agencies there to the rest
of the world. Some US newspapers used ham radio operators for coverage
in editions of 19 and 20 September. A few foreign reporters based in
Paul Knox is chair and associate professor in the school of journalism at Ryerson
University, Toronto. He is a former foreign editor, correspondent, and columnist for
The
Globe and Mail
, and also worked on the
Vancouver Sun
and the Belfast
News Letter
.
He wishes to acknowledge travel assistance received in 2005 from Foreign Affairs Canada
and Mexico’s Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores.
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