I stood in the soot-lined streets of London the morning of the July 7, 2005, bombings and started walking home because there was no other way to get there. It took me nearly 16 hours. The air tasted like metal. I held hands with a stranger for a while, neither of us knowing quite what to do.
Ten years later, almost to the day, I was having dinner near the Grand 16 Movie Theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana, when people started running and screaming from an active shooter inside the theatre. Police cars swallowed the street in blue and red light. I remember the sound of sirens folding into each other.
Social media misinformation after El Mencho’s death
I’ve lived through real chaos. I’ve reported on hurricanes, terror alerts, elections and the long tail of grief that follows tragedy.
I know what fear feels like in a city, and I know what it looks like when things actually fall apart.
That’s why what happened Sunday in Puerto Vallarta has left me shaken in a way I didn’t expect.
Not because there was unrest — of which there absolutely was. A cartel leader was killed elsewhere in Mexico, and as a result, violence flared in pockets of the country. Puerto Vallarta saw vehicle fires and property damage. There were tense hours, and authorities responded in force. It was all very serious.
But seriousness and sensationalism aren’t the same thing, and what followed wasn’t careful reporting or measured analysis. It was panic porn.
This image, almost certainly generated by AI, was among an estimated 200-500 posts on social media sharing false or unverified information in the 48 hours after the cartel kingpin’s capture, according to the Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Digital Media Observatory.
While I was at home with a stomach bug, toggling between my notebook and the bathroom floor, calling sources, confirming details, asking for photos and videos I could verify and checking timestamps and locations, social media was already sprinting ahead with a version of events that barely resembled reality.
An influencer posted a breathless video of himself being “extracted” by private jet, flanked by what he claimed were armoured security vehicles. If you actually watch the footage, you can see they’re standard SUVs. Not armoured or tactical. Just really, really shiny.
The drama was the point. He went from looking terrified to important to rescued. And his video racked up views.
Then the New York Post reported that security teams had swooped in and escorted millionaire clients onto ferries from Puerto Vallarta to Cabo.
There is no ferry from Puerto Vallarta to Cabo.
Not a seasonal one. Not a private one. Not a secret one. It simply doesn’t exist. And yet that detail didn’t slow the story down, because it sounded good. It fit the narrative of making Mexico feel more like a war zone that required extraction.
An influencer staying in the highly gated, wealthier tourist destination of Nuevo Nayarit, claimed she was “trapped,” “stranded,” and “without food and water.”
Nothing happened in Nuevo. No chaos, just holiday makers enjoying lockdown by their pools with open all-you-can-eat buffets beckoning them with a hearty welcome.
Photos circulated that weren’t from here. Video clips were miscaptioned. Phrases like “city under siege” and “center of hell” moved faster than any verified fact ever could. I watched the lie outpace the truth in real time. Over and over and over again.
And what hurt, what still hurts, is that I’ve given years of my life to doing this work carefully. To earning trust slowly. To double-checking names, locations, timestamps. To correcting myself publicly when I get something wrong.
That’s supposed to matter, but some days, I’m not sure it does anymore.
We’re in a moment where social media mixed with AI means anyone can look authoritative. Add dramatic music, a confident voice, a few urgent captions, maybe a headline generated in ten seconds, and suddenly you’re credible.
Fake fires, real fear: Debunking the lies that went viral after ‘El Mencho’ fell
So where does that leave those of us who built credibility the slow way? Who were taught that publishing something wrong wasn’t embarrassing, it was unethical?
I live here. This isn’t a dateline to me. It’s home. I know the woman who runs the corner shop, the hotel manager fielding cancellation calls from guests who think tanks are rolling down the Malecón, and families whose livelihoods depend on whether someone in Ohio or Alberta decides Mexico is “too dangerous” this week.
The lies don’t just bruise abstract concepts like ‘reputation.’ They hit real people.
I was contacted by seven major media outlets. Seven. They’d read my work here in Mexico News Daily, so they knew I wouldn’t sensationalize what happened. But it became clear they were hoping for something sharper that matched the temperature of the headlines already circulating. That isn’t what I do.
I knew the nuance I’d bring wouldn’t fit neatly into a segment built on urgency and fear. And more than likely, it’d be trimmed until it did. So I said no seven times. I said no to opportunities that could’ve expanded my reach in ways writers are told they should never pass up.
Then the BBC World Service reached out.
From the first conversation, it felt different. They weren’t chasing panic, they were chasing context. They wanted to talk about how we process events without feeding fear. They made space for three of us, right here in Mexico, to speak honestly.
That conversation reminded me why I became a journalist in the first place.
Still, I woke up with a heavy realisation. I’m never going to be widely read. I’m never going to be famous. And it’s not because I’m not good at what I do, because I most certainly am. It’s because I’m not willing to trade accuracy for amplification, and right now amplification is what the system rewards.
I’m angry today, because I love this place. And loving a place means defending it when it’s misrepresented.
I’m angry that I had to spend precious hours fact-checking viral nonsense instead of focusing on deeper reporting. I’m angry that geography is optional for some outlets. I’m angry that corrections whisper while lies shout. And I’m angry that Mexico is so often flattened into a caricature.
After the London bombings, no one asked me if the entire United Kingdom should be avoided indefinitely. After mass shootings in the United States, people don’t declare the whole country off-limits.
But let something happen in Mexico, and suddenly a nation of nearly 130 million people becomes a single, ominous headline.
My phone lights up every time.
“Is it safe?”
Here’s what’s true:
Sunday was rough. It was tense and unsettling, and I had a little cry.
But it wasn’t the apocalypse. Smoke clears, and algorithms move on.
And those of us who still care about the truth will be where we’re meant to be, like me in Mexico with my notebook in hand, sunburned, stubborn, and committed to facts, doing the slow, unglamorous work of getting it right.
As angry as I am right now, I’ve also been reminded of something rather beautiful. In the middle of all the noise and exaggeration, I watched this city do what it always does: neighbors checking in on neighbors; business owners sweeping up soot and opening their doors anyway; friends sending messages that simply say, “We’re okay. Come for coffee.” Life asserting itself.
The beach is still here every morning. The water doesn’t care about the headlines. Children are back on bicycles and playing marbles right outside my door. The corner shop is open on time.
And once this stomach bug finally clears, I’ll be right back out there sitting in the sand, talking with the people who stayed, who didn’t turn their fear into content, and who understand that loving a place means standing in it when it’s misunderstood. I’ll be here, because this is my home.
And the truth deserves someone willing to stay for it.
Charlotte Smith is a writer and journalist based in Mexico. Her work focuses on travel, politics and community.
