Just as cultural and political boundaries often blur along the Texas-Mexico border, so do the ethical guidelines followed by some border journalists. A handful of Texas newspaper reporters who cover the most important beats on the border -- business and the environment -- have been free-lancing on the same subjects for El Paso-based magazines that serve as mouthpieces for the foreign-owned factories along the Mexican side of the border.

This conflict of interest has reinforced the belief of some Texas environmentalists and labor activists that news organizations along the Texas border are generally reluctant to investigate the record of health and safety violations of those maquiladoras. "These papers don't seem to understand the role of the press," says Rose Farmer, the manager of an Audubon preserve outside Brownsville, Texas. "They seem to think they're an arm of the chamber of commerce. It's always a paper from Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio that'sbreaking stories down here."

When confronted about their free-lancing, the border reporters -- and one editor -- say they see no ethical conflict. Other Texas journalists disagree. "It's not even a gray area," says Houston Chronicle projects editor Don Mason. "Common sense would tell a good reporter to never get into that kind of relationship," offers David House, managing editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "Without our credibility we have nothing."

The story is a familiar one: underpaid reporters, often with no guidance from peers or editors on ethical issues, making an extra few hundred dollars spinning stories off their newspaper beats. Because they believe their stories to be "fair and objective," they see no conflict.

"I'm not writing editorials for them," says Brownsville Herald environmental reporter Hector Garza-Trejo, in defense of his writing for Twin Plant News, a slick El Paso monthly that calls itself "the magazine of the maquiladora industry since 1985." (As this article was going to press, Garza-Trejo left the paper to work for a local law firm.) Meanwhile, Herald business reporter Tony Vindell has written articles and taken photos for the bi-monthly Maquila: Voice of Free Trade, which once listed him on its masthead as a contributing writer. "I don't see the conflict," says Vindell, who describes his free-lance pieces as "feature stories" about the maquiladoras. "They're not very controversial."

No argument there. A typical Vindell article might quote an AT&T executive saying NAFTA is a "win-win between the United States and Mexico" and feature Vindell's own photos taken inside several maquilas -- a level of access often denied to the mainstream business press.

Neither Twin Plant News nor Maquila is likely to print any expose that names specific companies. Twin Plant News publisher Don Nibbe concedes as much. "I probably wouldn't [run an expose]," says the former maquila manager-turned-editor. "For me to stay in good with these companies [they need] to stay out of the limelight." Maquila magazine publisher Joanne Gwinn Burt says she wouldn't hesitate to print an unflattering piece about industry, but then asks, "What would be the point? It would be of fleeting interest to our readers. Besides, ninety-nine percent of the maquilas are environmentally correct."

A third free-lancing journalist, environmental reporter Luis Miguel Negron of the El Paso Times, who has written twice for Twin Plant News, also initially defended his actions, but after some thought had a change of heart. "I don't think I'll be doing that anymore," says Negron, twenty-seven. "It doesn't matter if you get paid twenty-five cents or thousands . . . There are appearances. The Times's editor and publisher, Don Flores, says he had been unaware of Negron's free-lancing -- which he says is against the paper's policy -- until informed about it by Negron shortly after CJR called.

Less bothered by appearances is Brownsville Herald managing editor Lavice Laney, who says she sees no conflict of interest in what her reporters have done as long as they do "an unbiased reporting job for us."

But to some potential news sources, those appearances matter. Rose Farmer, the Audubon preserve manager, says that when she learns of an important tip about industrial pollution she doesn't call the Herald: "I just don't trust some of the Herald's reporters. When I have a good story that needs an investigative reporter I call their competition -- the McAllen Monitor."

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