Jesús Blancornelas
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Jesús Blancornelas (b. 1936, San Luis Potosí – d. 23 November 2006, Tijuana) was a Mexican journalist.
He was born in San Luis Potosí, where he held his first job as a reporter. In 1960 he moved to Tijuana, Baja California, where, in 1977, he founded the weekly newsmagazine ABC de Tijuana and, in 1980, a successor publication called Zeta which is still published today. The brand of investigative journalism practiced by Blancornelas and his colleagues brought attention to corruption among local politicians, the burgeoning power of drugs gangs, particularly the Tijuana Cartel, and the frequent connections detected between the two.
He was the victim of several attempts on his life, including one on 27 November 1997 that left him critically injured and his bodyguard dead. In 1999, he was awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for his journalistic work. In 1996, he was one of four winners of the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards.
Blancornelas died in Tijuana on 23 November 2006 from complications caused by stomach cancer.
