VERACRUZ: A newspaper editor in eastern Mexico today became the fourth journalist to be shot in the country this month, an official said.
Armando Arrieta was in serious condition in hospital after being shot several times by two men, said Jorge Morales, regional leader of the State Commission for the Care and Protection of Journalists.
"He was arriving home in the early morning after finishing work on the newspaper" and the two men shot at him when he got out of his car, Morales told AFP.
"He is in very serious condition. They shot him almost point-blank."
Arrieta is editor of the newspaper La Opinion in the town of Poza Rica in Veracruz, one of the most violent states in a country stricken by drug gangs.
Mexico ranks third in the world for the number of journalists killed, after Syria and Afghanistan, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders.
It says 99 journalists were killed in Mexico between 2000 and 2016.
Three have been killed so far in March alone.
Miroslava Breach, 54, of the newspapers La Jornada and Norte de Juarez, was found dead in her vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds to the head in the northern city of Chihuahua on March 23, police said.
Breach had been investigating drug gangs.
Journalist Cecilio Pineda was shot while in a hammock at a car wash in Guerrero state on March 3, the state's security department said.
Newspaper editor Ricardo Monlui Cabrera was shot dead on March 19 while leaving a restaurant with his wife and son in Veracruz state, the commission said.