Jesús Blancornelas (1936, San Luis Potosí – 23 November 2006, Tijuana) was a Mexican journalist.
Born Juan Jesús Blanco Ornelas (and later conflated) in San Luis Potosí, he held his first job as a reporter in that city. In 1960 he moved to Tijuana, Baja California, where, in 1977, he founded the weekly newsmagazine ABC de Tijuana and, in 1980, a successor publication called Zeta which is still published today. The brand of investigative journalism practiced by Blancornelas and his colleagues brought attention to corruption among local politicians, the burgeoning power of drugs gangs, particularly the Tijuana Cartel, and the frequent connections detected between the two.
He was the victim of several attempts on his life, including one on 27 November 1997 that left him critically injured and his bodyguard dead.
In 1996, he was one of four winners of the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards. In 1999, he was awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for his journalistic work.[1] In 2000 he was named one of International Press Institute's 50 Heroes of World Press Freedom.[2]
Blancornelas died in Tijuana on 23 November 2006 from complications caused by stomach cancer.
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