Alejandro Leyva Aguilar, a journalist based in Oaxaca (a southern Mexican state long associated with political tensions and press vulnerability), has been killed, becoming the seventh reporter murdered in Mexico in just seven months. His death underscores what press freedom advocates describe as a systemic impunity crisis, with perpetrators of crimes against journalists rarely facing justice. Local and regional reporters are considered especially at risk, operating with minimal protection and little institutional recourse in areas where powerful interests go largely unchecked.