Journalist Fredid Román shot dead in southern Mexico

A Mexican journalist who published an online local news program was shot and killed Monday in southern Mexico — the 15th member of the media to be murdered in the country this year.

Fredid Román, who ran the program called “The Reality of Guerrero,” was gunned down inside his vehicle in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, local prosecutors said.

Further details on the fatal shooting were not immediately available.

Román focused heavily on state-level politics in his reporting and previously published a newspaper under the same name in Guerrero — where drug cartels, armed vigilantes and other groups regularly clash.

His murder adds to the horrific, record-breaking tally of journalist slayings this year in Mexico. Outside of a warzone, Mexico is now considered the most dangerous country for reporters.

Román was killed just one week after independent journalist Juan Arjón López was found bludgeoned to death in the northern border state of Sonora, across the border from Yuma, Arizona.

The area of Sonora where his body was found, San Luis Rio Colorado, has been rocked by drug cartel violence in recent years. In March, volunteers discovered 11 bodies in clandestine burial pits near a garbage dump in a stretch of desert there.

Following Arjón López’s death, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Mexican representative warned that a lack of prosecution in many of the journalist murders would lead to more slaughters in the country.

“Although some arrests have been made in earlier cases of press killings this year, an ongoing climate of impunity continues to fuel these attacks,” Jan-Albert Hootsen said.

Mexican journalists have been targeted by drug cartels and other members of organized crime as well as small town officials and elected officials with political motivations.

Independent journalists and reporters running small news outlets often face the greatest danger.

In early August, another journalist was killed along with three others inside a beer shop in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. However, it is unclear if she was targeted for being a member of the press or another reason.

With Post wires