From the Publisher's Desk October 2004

From the Publisher's Desk

Another Busy Season

It is that time of year again when we welcome back visitors escaping the chilly weather up North and our part-time residents. We Mazatlecans have recovered from the heat and humidity of the summer months, and everywhere you feel the pulse of the city perk up as the cooler weather heralds the end of the summer slow-down. Here at the Pacific Pearl, we are gearing up for another busy season of providing our readers with the best English language information available on what‘s happening in Mazatlàn.

We will continue to provide fresh information of events and issues occurring in and around Mazatlán. We are trying hard to persuade local event planners to advise us of upcoming programs so the English speaking community is aware of them and can participate. It is an on-going struggle, but we continue to try.

As a community newspaper, we provide a surveillance function for tourists and local foreign residents by keeping an eye on what´s going on and publishing reliable reports. Our paper has a tradition of speaking up when we see situations that compromise our society. This trustworthy information enables citizens, residents and tourists to make informed decisions on events and issues that are important to them, and we will continue in this vein.

To fulfill this function, the news media has been accorded special protections —freedom of the press and confidentiality of news sources. Editorials and news commentaries provide a co-relation of functions. We respect the culture of the country in which we live, and abide by the laws governing all of us, whether citizen, immigrant or tourist. We will continue to remind people of the laws that are here to protect them.

The Pacific Pearl has been proudly publishing for 12 years. It is the Pacific Pearl´s code of ethics to keep our readers as informed as possible. An informed community is a vigorous, involved community.

Despite the hot weather, we were not idle during the 2004 summer. We improved our popular website by adding a new information forum, a Mazatlán motorcycle forum, on-line classifieds and a reader survey. And we planted a seed for a Community Alert and Protection Program (see www.pacificpearl.com on the upper right hand side of the web page).

We look forward to the coming season. We will continue to value our readers´ stories and opinions, and always welcome your comments. You can reach us by email, telephone or letter, or drop into our office to say hello.

Michael J. Veselik

Publisher