Talk about the ultimate fake-out. When I first saw the cover of last week’s San Diego Reader, I got excited.
“Wow, are those assholes over at the Reader actually going to do something positive on my city?” I wondered.
Alas, it was a false alarm. As I should have expected, Michael Hemmingson played the roll of laptop journalist and simply rounded up old reports about Tijuana’s history of violence. Good job, Hemmingson, way to be completely unoriginal, lazy and predictable. Did you even step foot in the city before you published this piece? In fact, have you EVER been to Tijuana? Who, cares, right? You weren’t really going for truth here, you were looking for the ole’ shock-and-awe factor, quoting pro-Mintuemen websites in your lead graphs, quoting other people’s year-old journalism ( From Hemmingson’s third paragraph: “What affects one side affects the other,” Mayor Jerry Sanders tells USA Today on February 5, 2007. “We’re literally one region with a fence down the middle.”) and ultimately presenting a portrait of Tijuana that could be a portrait of any other city in the United States if you were bored enough to round up every reported case of violence since 1994.
So, from my friends in Tijuana to Hemmingson and the Reader for publishing 30-something pages of diarrhea, here’s a resounding “fuck you.” Learn how to do some real journalism, jerk, and give us a call or ask for a tour next time you decide to write about our city.
And for those of you as offended by Hemmingson’s attempt at journalism as I am, write his editor at sdredit@nethere.com.
Stairs to nowhere 
i WAS SHOCKED AS WELL, tHE READER, FUCK THE READER, I BELIEVE THAT TIJUANA HAS ITS DARK SIDE, AS MNAY OTHER PLACES DO, BUT YOU THE WRITER OF THIS BLOG KNOWS, THAT TIJUANA HAS ITS FUN AND SAFE PLACES. i HATE THE ARTICLE IN THE READER BECAUSE OF THESE TALES OF TOURISTS GETTING RAPPED AND WHAT NOT, COME ON!!! MAKE TJ A LIL MORE SCARY WHY DONT YA! I HAVE ALWAYS FELT THAT IF YOU GO TO MEXICO, HAVE GOOD CLEAN FUN AND ACT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON THE EXPERIENCE SHOULD BE COOL, BUT IF YOU GO TO DO THE THINGS THAT U CANT DO IN THE USA(AND FOR SOME REASON THINK ITS OK TO DO IN MEXICO) LIKE. GETTING MEGA SHITFACED, THROWING UP ON OUR STREETS, TRYING TO BUY DRUGAS AND IN GENERAL ACTING LIKE AN ASS, THEN UR ASKING FOR PROBLEMS.
TONYTEE
American people defending Tijuana. I love it.
It’s about time somebody called them on this. The Reader’s disdain for Tijuana has been consistent for decades.
Well Jesus Ruiz, they created Tijuana! its as much theirs as ours (the good and the bad). I have not read the article, but know I cant wait.
thanks Kinsee
Rene
Oh My!!! I just finished reading the article online and you know what??? Let them believe it. If there fantasy land of cheap whores and cheap beer is gone, then stay home. If they cant lie to their wives anymore saying their on a business trip while they come down to f*** a 50 dll whore, than too bad. If they cant come skipping through the border gates to drink all night an vomit in the street, then find another cheap thrill somewhere else. Regarding the author, I cant waste too much time writing about this amateur reporter. This wikipedia/google expert needs to learn to write about things he really knows, its a shame that he confuses access to information (globalization) with critical knowledge, expertise and responsibility to inform the public about issues that are intertwined with bi-national politics, economy and regional history .
Mr.Hemmingson go back to school.
Same reaction I had Kinsee. I picked it up outside of Reader offices in little Italy so exicited that I found the closest seat. Read a piece of shit crime timeline and almost decided on kicking the fucking window open of their offices for such ignorance.
What kind of an idiot hashes a timeline of a city’s criminal activity as an article? Did you see his ‘personal tijuana timeline?’ I almost wanted to laugh.
Have they not been reading the U-T or LA Times – this is already done on a daily basis.
On the other hand, coming back last night with only 7 cars in front of us at San Ysidro…:^)
Add my fuck you please.
I read this article while getting a haircut in TJ… I was also mislead by the pretty cover… that copy paste article? c´mon.. besides I think he is about 3 months late for mexico bashing fest that the media had… but it IS the Reader.. what do you expect?
I couldn’t have said it better, Kinsee…
At a meeting today in Tijuana, one of the locals said “Doesn’t the Reader realize how many people here read them? F– them if they think I’m going to pick up their paper again”….
But…the bashing and regurgitating continue: front page of ABC news website: “Tijuana: Where the Drug War is Real”… Looks like Mr. Hemmingson can get a job at ABC News….
Take care
I couldn’t stop laughing at this article; it’s like Hemmingson looked at the average Matt Potter article (10 Union-Tribune quotes seems to be his minimum per story) and went overboard…the real problem are not the narcotrafficantes in Tijuana but the assholes in the US getting high on the shit that is smuggled through the border. The “Geezer” does not care that it it’s read in TJ; it’s aimed at the people who live miles north of downtown San Diego, and anyway it’s a means to prop up Jim Holman’s gay-bashing Catholic paper. BTW, this week the “Weezer” is doing an article on how old people go to Tijuana to die or some such nonsense.
It’s basically very lazy journalism–if it can be called journalism at all. He doesn’t trouble to do any reporting on his own, just reads what others have written and writes a timeline. What’s publishable about that?
It’s publishable because Jim Holman has very low editorial standards; there have been issues of the Reader completely made up of ten-year-old stories, and serializations of old out-of-print novels set in “historic” San Diego have taken up large chunks of space for months. For a magazine where the “Sporting Box” column has been focusing on North Korea and the electoral chances of Barrack Obama instead of sports, where there’s a column that rates churches, Hemmingson’s crud journalism is par the course.
I saw it, but I was to stoned to read it. Never-the-less, fuck the Reader! By the way, isn’t the Reader owned by some Orange County pro-Bush ultra-conservative media company?
I hear Hemmingson was offered a book contract to expand his article into a book, and I hear the advance was six figures. Is this true?
Well Mexico can blame the Reader for its problems and maybe TJ is not as bad as the Reader painted it but it is pretty messed up…Your cops are too dishonest and your tourism being down 95% is what you get for it…Hire some honest cops and maybe people will visit your city again….Untill then stop crying….and clean your act up….
Great article! I bet a lot of work went into this post.